collect Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a short prayer generally preceding the lesson in the Church of Rome or the Church of England
  2. verb get or gather together
    amass; roll up; compile; accumulate; hoard; pile up.
    • I am accumulating evidence for the man's unfaithfulness to his wife
    • She is amassing a lot of data for her thesis
    • She rolled up a small fortune
  3. verb call for and obtain payment of
    take in.
    • we collected over a million dollars in outstanding debts
    • he collected the rent
  4. verb assemble or get together
    pull together; gather; garner.
    • gather some stones
    • pull your thoughts together
  5. verb get or bring together
    pull in.
    • accumulate evidence
  6. verb gather or collect
    call for; pick up; gather up.
    • You can get the results on Monday
    • She picked up the children at the day care center
    • They pick up our trash twice a week
  7. adjective satellite payable by the recipient on delivery
    cod.
    • a collect call
    • the letter came collect
    • a COD parcel
  8. adverb make a telephone call or mail a package so that the recipient pays
    • call collect
    • send a package collect

WordNet

Col*lect" transitive verb
Etymology
L. collecrus, p. p. of collerige to bind together; col- + legere to gather: cf. OF. collecter. See Legend, and cf. Coil, v. t., Cull, v. t.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Collected; present participle & verbal noun Collecting
Definitions
  1. To gather into one body or place; to assemble or bring together; to obtain by gathering.
    A band of men Collected choicely from each country. Shak.
    'Tis memory alone that enriches the mind, by preserving what our labor and industry daily collect. Watts.
  2. To demand and obtain payment of, as an account, or other indebtedness; as, to collect taxes.
  3. To infer from observed facts; to conclude from premises. Archaic. Shak.
    Which sequence, I conceive, is very ill collected. Locke.
    Syn. -- To gather; assemble; congregate; muster; accumulate; garner; aggregate; amass; infer; deduce.
Col*lect" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To assemble together; as, the people collected in a crowd; to accumulate; as, snow collects in banks.
  2. To infer; to conclude. Archaic
    Whence some collect that the former word imports a plurality of persons. South.
Col"lect noun
Etymology
LL. collecta, fr. L. collecta a collection in money; an assemblage, fr. collerige: cf. F. collecte. See Collect, v. t.
Definitions
  1. A short, comprehensive prayer, adapted to a particular day, occasion, or condition, and forming part of a liturgy.
    The noble poem on the massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse. Macaulay.

Webster 1913