# collection
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English colleccioun, collection, from Old French collection, from Latin collēctiō, collēctiōnem, from collēctus, from colligō (“collect together”), composed of con- +‎ legō (“bring together, gather, collect”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather, collect”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kəˈlɛkʃən/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛkʃən
* Hyphenation: col‧lec‧tion

### Noun

collection (countable and uncountable, plural collections)
* A set of items or amount of material procured, gathered or presented together.
    The attic contains a remarkable collection of antiques, oddities, and random junk.
    The asteroid belt consists of a collection of dust, rubble, and minor planets.
    This year's Summer Collection will include a wide range of evening wear.
    He has a superb coin collection.
** 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:Secondly, I continue to base my concepts on intensive study of a limited suite of collections, rather than superficial study of every packet that comes to hand.
** 1837, William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences:collections of moisture
** 1887, Robert Bartholow, A Treatise on the Practice of Medicine:a purulent collection
** 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.
* (music) A set of pitch classes used by a composer.
** 2005, Neil Minturn, The Last Waltz of The Band, page 112:The "collectional information" one receives is ambiguous since the collection { C, E, F, G, A } occurs in the key of C and in the key of F.
** 2009, Brian Moseley, “Form and Transpositional Combination in George Crumb's Lux Aeterna”, in Bruce Quaglia, Jack Boss, editors, Musical Currents from the Left Coast, page 174:In fact, students are often taught that specific collections—diatonic, octatonic, and whole-tone, etc.—typify these composers' compositional language.
** 2012, Marguerite Boland, John Link, Elliott Carter Studies, page 22:Simply put, the realm of available collections in a largely diatonic environment is much smaller than it is in truly atonal one.
* The activity of collecting.
    Collection of trash will occur every Thursday.
* (set theory, topology, mathematical analysis) A set of sets; used because such a thing is in general too large to comply with the formal definition of a set.
* A gathering of money for charitable or other purposes, as by passing a contribution box for donations.
** 1976 February 7, Rose Flower, quoting Jimmy McGrath, “Playland: The Friendliest Place In Town”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 32, page 13:The people here are very good to each other, too. When someone's house burned down, when someone was in the hospital, they took up collections for the people.
* (law) Debt collection.
* (obsolete) The act of inferring or concluding from premises or observed facts; also, that which is inferred.
** 1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, book:We may safely say thus, that wrong collections have been hitherto made out of those words by modern divines.
* (UK) The jurisdiction of a collector of excise.
* (Oxford University, usually in the plural) A set of college exams generally taken at the start of the term.
* The quality of being collected; calm composure.

#### Derived terms

* biocollection
* capped collection
* collection agency
* collectional
* collection box
* collectioner
* collectionitis
* collection-plate
* collection plate
* collection procedure
* collection society
* cryocollection
* data collection
* e-collection
* fog collection
* garbage collection
* grievance collection
* injustice collection
* megacollection
* microcollection
* minicollection
* money collection
* multicollection
* noncollection
* overcollection
* precollection
* recollection
* selective collection
* stamp collection
* subcollection
* take up a collection
* tax collection
* type collection
* undercollection
* wound collection

#### Translations

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

## French
### Alternative forms

* c., coll. (abbreviations)

### Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin collēctiō. Cf. also Old French quieuçon, which may be inherited from the same source, and the modern cueillaison, which was probably formed analogically.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kɔ.lɛk.sjɔ̃/
* Audio (Paris):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɔ̃
* Homophone: collections
* Hyphenation: col‧lec‧tion

### Noun

collection f (plural collections)
* collection

#### Derived terms

* collectionner
** collectionneur
* collectionnite

#### Related terms

* collecte
* collecter
* cueillette
* cueillir

#### Descendants

* → Romanian: colecție
* → Turkish: koleksiyon

### Further reading

* “collection”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.