collect

From Middle English collecten, a borrowing from Old French collecter, from Medieval Latin collectare (“to collect money”), from Latin collecta (“a collection of money, in Late Latin a meeting, assemblage, in Medieval Latin a tax, also an assembly for prayer, a prayer”), feminine of collectus, past participle of colligere, conligere (“to gather together, collect, consider, conclude, infer”), from com- (“together”) + legere (“to gather”).

• IPA^(key): /kəˈlɛkt/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛkt

collect (third-person singular simple present collects, present participle collecting, simple past and past participle collected)

1. (transitive) To gather together; amass.
   • 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

     Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.

   Suzanne collected all the papers she had laid out.

   The team uses special equipment to collect data on temperature, wind speed and rainfall.

2. (transitive) To get; particularly, get from someone.

   A bank collects a monthly payment on a client's new car loan.   A mortgage company collects a monthly payment on a house.

3. (transitive) To accumulate (a number of similar or related objects), particularly for a hobby or recreation.

   John Henry collects stamps.

   I don't think he collects as much as hoards.

4. (transitive, now rare) To form a conclusion; to deduce, infer. (Compare gather, get.)
   • 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XVII, section 20

     […] which consequence, I conceive, is very ill collected.

   • c 1725, John Walker, ‎William Burton (of Bloomsbury), Essays and correspondence, chiefly on Scriptural subjects:

     From the latter passages we may collect, that the expression "he that cometh" was, with the Jews, a kind of title distinguishing the Messiah

   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park:

     'I collect,' said Miss Crawford, 'that Sotherton is an old place, and a place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?'

   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, page 292-3:

     the riot is so great that it is very difficult to collect what is being said.

5. (intransitive, often with on or against) To collect payments.

   He had a lot of trouble collecting on that bet he made.

6. (intransitive) To come together in a group or mass.

   The rain collected in puddles.

7. (transitive) To infer; to conclude.
   • (Can we date this quote?), South

     Whence some collect that the former word imports a plurality of persons.

8. (transitive, of a vehicle or driver) To collide with or crash into (another vehicle or obstacle).

   The truck veered across the central reservation and collected a car that was travelling in the opposite direction.

• (to gather together): aggregate, gather up; see also Thesaurus:round up
• (to get from someone): receive, secure; see also Thesaurus:receive
• (to accumulate items for a hobby): amound, gather; see also Thesaurus:accumulate
• (to infer, conclude, form a conclusion): assume, construe
• (to collect payments):
• (to come together in a group or mass): group, mass, merge; see also Thesaurus:assemble or Thesaurus:coalesce
• (to collide with): bump into, plough into, run into

• garbage collect

collect (not comparable)

1. To be paid for by the recipient, as a telephone call or a shipment.

   It was to be a collect delivery, but no-one was available to pay.

collect (not comparable)

1. With payment due from the recipient.

   I had to call collect.

From Latin ōrātiō ad collectam (“prayer towards the congregation”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑlɪkt/, /ˈkɑlɛkt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒlɪkt/

collect (plural collects) (sometimes capitalized)

1. (Christianity) The prayer said before the reading of the epistle lesson, especially one found in a prayerbook, as with the Book of Common Prayer.

   He used the day's collect as the basis of his sermon.

• collect in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• collect in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• collect at OneLook Dictionary Search