collation

Borrowed from Old French collation, from Latin collatiō, from the participle stem of cōnferō (“to bring together”).

• IPA^(key): /kəˈleɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

collation (countable and uncountable, plural collations)

1. Bringing together.
   1. The act of bringing things together and comparing them; comparison. [from 14th c.]

      (Can we find and add a quotation of Alexander Pope to this entry?)

   2. The act of collating pages or sheets of a book, or from printing etc. [from 19th c.]
   3. A collection, a gathering. [from 20th c.]
      • 2010, Will Dean, The Guardian, 29 Apr 2010:

        It's fantastic, as is so much of Forgiveness Rock Record, a collation of so many talents that it's practically bursting at the seams.

2. Discussion, light meal.
   1. (obsolete) A conference or consultation. [14th-17th c.]
   2. (in the plural) The Collationes Patrum in Scetica Eremo Commorantium by John Cassian, an important ecclesiastical work. (Now usually with capital initial.) [from 13th c.]
      • 1563, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. 2, p. 55:

        A certain abbot, named Moses, thus testifieth of himself in the Collations of Cassianus, that he so afflicted himself with much fasting and watching, that sometimes, for two or three days together, not only he felt no appetite to eat, but also had no remembrance of any meat at all […]

   3. A reading held from the work mentioned above, as a regular service in Benedictine monasteries. [from 14th c.]
      • 1843, TD Fosbroke, British Monachism, p. 52:

        When the hymn was over the Sacrist was to strike the table for collation, and the Deacon to enter with the Gospel, preceded by three converts, carrying the candlestick and censer.

   4. The light meal taken by monks after the reading service mentioned above. [from 14th c.]
   5. Any light meal or snack. [from 16th c.]
      • 2008, Tim Hayward, The Guardian, 13 May 08:

        Yes, absolutely; supper, at least in English tradition, was a cold collation, left out by cook before retiring.

3. (ecclesiastical) The presentation of a clergyman to a benefice by a bishop, who has it in his own gift.
4. (civil law, inheritance) The blending together of property so as to achieve equal division, mainly in the case of inheritance.

   Synonym: hotchpot

5. (civil law, inheritance, Scotland) An heir's right to combine the whole heritable and movable estates of the deceased into one mass, sharing it equally with others who are of the same degree of kindred.
6. (obsolete) The act of conferring or bestowing.
   • Francis Bacon

     Not by the collation of the king […] but by the people.

7. (ecclesiastical) Presentation to a benefice.

collation (third-person singular simple present collations, present participle collationing, simple past and past participle collationed)

1. (obsolete) To partake of a collation, or light meal.
   • Evelyn

     May 20, 1658, I […] collationed in Spring Garden.

• allotonic

Borrowed from Latin collātiō.

• Audio

  (file)

collation f (plural collations)

1. (used in collation des grades) the process of granting an academic degree.
2. (Canada, Belgium) a light snack usually taken between breakfast and lunch (often employed as the analogue of English brunch).

• collationner

• “collation” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

collation f (plural collations)

1. discussion

• French: collation

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (collation)

collation f (oblique plural collations, nominative singular collation, nominative plural collations)

1. discussion

• Middle French: collation
  • French: collation
• → English: collation

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (collation)