collect

verb

1. (transitive)To gather together; amass.

   “Suzanne collected all the papers she had laid out.”

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

   “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.”

   “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.).”

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.”

   “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.”

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.”

   “My friend from school has started to collects mangas and novels recently”

   “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.”

4. (transitive)To pick up or fetch

   “Can you collect me from the airport?”

5. (archaic, transitive)To form a conclusion; to deduce, infer. (Compare gather, get.)

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

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

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

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

6. (intransitive)To collect payments.

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

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

   “The rain collected in puddles.”

8. (transitive)To infer; to conclude.

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

9. (transitive)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.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)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.”

adv

1. (not-comparable)With payment due from the recipient.

   “I had to call collect.”

noun

1. (capitalized, sometimes)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.”