collection

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”).

noun

1. A set of items or amount of material procured or gathered 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.
   collections of moisture 1837, William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences
   a purulent collection 1887, Robert Bartholow, A Treatise on the Practice of Medicine
2. Multiple related objects associated as a group.
   He has a superb coin collection.
   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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
3. (music) A set of pitch classes used by a composer.
   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. 2005, Neil Minturn, The Last Waltz of The Band, page 112
   In fact, students are often taught that specific collections—diatonic, octatonic, and whole-tone, etc.—typify these composers' compositional language. 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
   Simply put, the realm of available collections in a largely diatonic environment is much smaller than it is in truly atonal one. 2012, Marguerite Boland, John Link, Elliott Carter Studies, page 22
4. The activity of collecting.
   Collection of trash will occur every Thursday.
5. (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.
6. A gathering of money for charitable or other purposes, as by passing a contribution box for donations.
7. (law) Debt collection.
8. (obsolete) The act of inferring or concluding from premises or observed facts; also, that which is inferred.
9. (UK) The jurisdiction of a collector of excise.
10. (Oxford University, usually in the plural) A set of college exams generally taken at the start of the term.
11. The quality of being collected; calm composure.