What is the correct spelling of a formal gathering?

The correct spelling of the word for a formal gathering is Assembly: a-s-s-e-m-b-l-y, eight letters, with two s's after the initial a and ending in -bly (silent e is absent in this case). The word comes from the Old French assemblee, from the Latin assimulare (to bring together). The most common spelling errors are using one s (Asembly), inserting an extra letter (Assemblly), or substituting the ending (Assemblee or Assemble, though assemble is a related verb, not the noun). One memory aid: AS-SEM-BLY, with two s's and ending in y.

On the USCIS writing test sentences containing assembly may include "Citizens have the right to assembly," "Freedom of assembly is in the First Amendment," or "The people assemble peacefully." In U.S. constitutional law the right of assembly is one of the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment, alongside religion, speech, the press, and petition.

The First Amendment guarantees the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and the Supreme Court has interpreted the clause to protect protests, marches, rallies, and similar collective expressions of opinion subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The clause does not protect violent assemblies. The right has been central to American civic life from abolitionist meetings and women's suffrage marches to the modern civil rights movement and contemporary political demonstrations.

Many state legislatures call their lower house the General Assembly or the State Assembly. The right of assembly was applied to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment in De Jonge v. Oregon (1937), and the closely related freedom of association was recognized in NAACP v. Alabama (1958).