collate

From Latin collātum, past participle of cōnferō. Not related to collateral.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɒˈleɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊ.leɪt/
• Rhymes: -eɪt
• Hyphenation: col‧late

collate (third-person singular simple present collates, present participle collating, simple past and past participle collated)

1. (transitive) To examine diverse documents and so on, to discover similarities and differences.

   The young attorneys were set the task of collating the contract submitted by the other side with the previous copy.

   • c. 1831, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on the Book of Common Prayer:

     I must collate it, word by word, with the original Hebrew.

2. (transitive) To assemble something in a logical sequence.
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room, paperback edition, Vintage Classics, page 101:

     Detest your own age. Build a better one. And to set that on foot read incredibly dull essays upon Marlowe to your friends. For which purpose one must collate editions in the British Museum.

   • 2021 September 22, John Potter tells Paul Stephen, “Your guide to Europe”, in RAIL, number 940, page 65:

     "Once collated, all files are sent to an external printing business with a turnaround time of about seven days, and then most of the distribution is done in-house.

3. (transitive) To sort multiple copies of printed documents into sequences of individual page order, one sequence for each copy, especially before binding.

   Collating was still necessary because they had to insert foldout sheets and index tabs into the documents.

4. (obsolete) To bestow or confer.
   • 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, “Section IV”, in Clerus Domini: or, A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacrednesse, and Separation of the Office Ministerial. , London: R Royston , published 1655, →OCLC, paragraph 4, page 23:

     Becauſe thoſe hereticall Biſhops being depoſed and reduced into Lay-communion, could not therefore collate baptiſme for their want of holy Orders: […]

5. (transitive, Christianity) To admit a cleric to a benefice; to present and institute in a benefice, when the person presenting is both the patron and the ordinary; followed by to.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

See collocate § Usage notes.

• “collate”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

collāte

1. vocative masculine singular of collātus