# collector
## English
### Alternative forms

* collecter
* collectour (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Middle English collectour, from Anglo-Norman collectour, from Late Latin collector, from Latin colligō (“to gather together”).

### Pronunciation

* enPR: kə-lĕk'tər
* (General American) IPA: /kəˈlɛktɚ/
* (UK) IPA: /kəˈlɛktə(ɹ)/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛktə(ɹ)

### Noun

collector (plural collectors)
* A person who or thing that collects, or which creates or manages a collection.
    She is an avid collector of nineteenth-century postage stamps.
    That old piano is just a big dust collector.
** 1941 January, “Railway Literature”, in Railway Magazine, page 48:The Young Collector's Handbook. By E. C. R. Hadfield and C. Hamilton Ellis. London: Oxford University Press, Amen House, E.C.4. 7½ in. × 5 in. × 1 in. 78 pp. Illustrated. Price 4s. 6d. net.—Most persons are collectors at some periods of their lives. Some outgrow the habit; with others it becomes a mania; and with still others it is a lasting habit intelligently planned as one aspect of a study of a particular subject.
** 2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits”, in The Onion AV Club‎:Hungry for fame and the approval of rare-animal collector Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton), Darwin deceives the Captain and his crew into believing they can get enough booty to win the pirate competition by entering Polly in a science fair. So the pirates journey to London in cheerful, blinkered defiance of the Queen, a hotheaded schemer whose royal crest reads simply “I hate pirates.”
* A person who is employed to collect payments.
    She works for the government as a tax collector.
** 1668 July 3rd, James Dalrymple, “Thomas Rue contra Andrew Houſtoun” in The Deciſions of the Lords of Council & Seſſion I (Edinburgh, 1683), page 547
    Andrew Houſtoun and Adam Muſhet, being Tackſmen of the Excize, did Imploy Thomas Rue to be their Collector, and gave him a Sallary of 30. pound Sterling for a year.
** 2010, “Telephone”, performed by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé:I should've left my phone at home 'cause this is a disaster / Callin' like a collector / Sorry, I cannot answer
** A mafioso whose task is to collect protection money from small businesses
* (electronics) The amplified terminal on a bipolar junction transistor.
* A compiler of books; one who collects scattered passages and puts them together in one book.
** 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:Volumes […] without any of tthe collector's own reflections.
* (historical) One holding a Bachelor of Arts in Oxford, formerly appointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings in Lent.
** 1655, Anthony Wood, diaries:Whereupon he soon after appointed A. W. his collector in Austins; which office he kept till he was admitted Mr. of arts
* A major sewer which collects sewerage from a number of smaller branch sewers

#### Derived terms

* Boehm collector
* bow collector
* collectorate
* collectoress
* collector lane
* collector road
* collectorship
* collector shoe
* collector's item
* debt collector
* dust-collector
* fog collector
* garbage collector
* grievance collector
* injustice collector
* juice collector
* kettle fur collector
* noncollector
* pure collector
* refuse collector
* solar collector
* solar thermal collector
* stamp collector
* subcollector
* tax collector
* ticket-collector
* ticket collector
* toll-collector
* undercollector
* wound collector

#### Related terms

* collect
* collection

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.