Collect Meaning
/kəˈlɛkt/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo gather together; amass.
verbTo get; particularly, get from someone.
Sentence Examples
Do you collect anything?
I'd like to make a collect call to Los Angeles.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The charity volunteers will ____ donations for the homeless shelter tonight.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She travels around the world to specifically ____ rare stamps for her extensive album.
Word Origin & History
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”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather, collect”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:
"At first, I swept the lowest-growing plants, collecting a variety of mostly chrysomelids and curculionids and even one Agrilus sp., before moving to beating along the sunny edges of the patches of taller shrubs and collecting similar species (but no Agrilus sp.)."
— 2022 May 14, Ted C. MacRae, Cupressaceae:
"The EPA collects emissions data from more than 20,000 industrial facilities across the country and has even developed its own state-of-the-art tool — the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators model — to estimate the impact of toxic emissions on human health."
— 2021 November 2, Lylla Younes, Ava Kofman, Al Shaw and Lisa Song, “Poison in the Air”, in ProPublica:
"Over the course of 60 years, W E Hayward collected thousands of railway-related objects, including clothing, buttons, cutlery, timetables, tickets, name, number and builder's plates, books and booklets, cuttings and extracts from publications, letters, photographs and postcards."
— 2020 June 17, Stefanie Foster, “A window into the railways of the past”, in Rail, page 54:
"[…] which consequence, I conceive, is very ill collected."
— 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XVII, section 20:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The charity volunteers will ____ donations for the homeless shelter tonight.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She travels around the world to specifically ____ rare stamps for her extensive album.