collector

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• collectour (obsolete)

Etymology

English collect, from Middle English collecten, from Latin colligere ("to gather together", past participle collectus), from com- (together) + legare (to choose), from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to pick out, select”) (Watkins, 1969)

Pronunciation

• enPR: kō-lĕk'tûr, kə-lĕk'tûr, kə-lĕk'tər

Noun

collector (plural collectors)

1. A person who or thing which collects, or which creates or manages a collection.

   He is an avid collector of nineteenth-century postage stamps.

   That old piano is just a big dust collector.

   • 2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits :”, The Onion AV Club:

     Hungry for fame and the approval of rare-animal collector Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton), Darwin deceives the Captain and his crew into believing they can get enough booty to win the pirate competition by entering Polly in a science fair. So the pirates journey to London in cheerful, blinkered defiance of the Queen, a hotheaded schemer whose royal crest reads simply “I hate pirates.”

2. A person who is employed to collect payments.

   She works for the government as a tax collector.

   • 1668 July 3rd, James Dalrymple, “Thomas Rue contra Andrew Houſtoun” in The Deciſions of the Lords of Council & Seſſion I (Edinburgh, 1683), page 547

     Andrew Houſtoun and Adam Muſhet, being Tackſmen of the Excize, did Imploy Thomas Rue to be their Collector, and gave him a Sallary of 30. pound Sterling for a year.

3. (electronics) The amplified terminal on a bipolar junction transistor.
4. A compiler of books; one who collects scattered passages and puts them together in one book.
   • Addison

     Volumes without the collector's own reflections.

5. (historical) One holding a Bachelor of Arts in Oxford, formerly appointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings in Lent.

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

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Related terms

• collect
• collection

Translations

person or thing that collects

• Afrikaans: please add this translation if you can
• Albanian: please add this translation if you can
• Amharic: please add this translation if you can
• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Aragonese: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Assamese: please add this translation if you can
• Asturian: coleicionista (ast) m and f
• Aymara: please add this translation if you can
• Azeri: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: please add this translation if you can
• Bengali: please add this translation if you can
• Breton: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: събирач (bg) (sǎbirač) m, колекционер (bg) (kolekcioner) m
• Catalan: col·leccionador (ca) m, col·leccionista (ca) m and f
• Cherokee: please add this translation if you can
• Chichewa: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 收藏家 (cmn) (shōucángjiā) (hobby, e.g. stamps), 收債人 (cmn), 收债人 (cmn) (shōuzhàirén) (debt collector), 收稅員 (cmn), 收税员 (cmn) (shōushuìyuán) (tax collector)

• Czech: sběratel (cs) m (person)
• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dhivehi: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: verzamelaar (nl) m (person)
• Esperanto: kolektanto (eo)
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Ewe: please add this translation if you can
• Extremaduran: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: keräilijä (fi) (person), kerääjä (fi) (thing)
• French: collectionneur (fr) m, collectionneuse (fr) f
• Friulian: please add this translation if you can
• Galician: coleccionista (gl) m and f
• German: Sammler (de) m, Sammlerin (de) f
• Greek: συλλέκτης (el) (sylléktis) m
• Gujarati: please add this translation if you can
• Hausa: please add this translation if you can
• Hawaiian: mea ʻohi
• Hebrew: אספן (he) (asfan) m, אספנית (he) (asfanyt) f
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Ido: please add this translation if you can
• Igbo: please add this translation if you can
• Indonesian: please add this translation if you can
• Interlingua: please add this translation if you can
• Interlingue: please add this translation if you can
• Irish: bailitheoir (ga) m, cruinnitheoir (ga) m, tiomsaitheoir (ga) m
• Italian: collezionista (it) m and f
• Japanese: 集める人 (ja) (atsumeru hito), かけ取り (ja) (kaketori) (e.g. tax, bill)

• Kannada: please add this translation if you can
• Khmer: អ្នកប្រមូល (km) (neak prɑmool)
• Kinyarwanda: please add this translation if you can
• Kirundi: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: collector (la) m, convector (la) m, legulus (la) m
• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
• Luganda: please add this translation if you can
• Luxembourgish: please add this translation if you can
• Malay: pengutip (ms), pemungut (ms)
• Malayalam: please add this translation if you can
• Marathi: please add this translation if you can
• Mirandese: please add this translation if you can
• Novial: please add this translation if you can
• Occitan: colleccionaire (oc) m
• Oriya: please add this translation if you can
• Pashto: please add this translation if you can
• Persian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: kolekcjoner (pl) m, zbieracz (pl) m
• Portuguese: coletor (pt) m
• Punjabi: please add this translation if you can
• Rajasthani: please add this translation if you can
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Romansch: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: коллекционер (ru) (kollekcionér) m (hobby, e.g. stamps), сборщик (ru) (sbórščik) m (e.g. tax, bill)
• Sardinian: please add this translation if you can
• Serbo-Croatian: колекционар (sh) m, kolekcionar (sh) m
• Sicilian: please add this translation if you can
• Sindhi: please add this translation if you can
• Sinhalese: please add this translation if you can
• Somali: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: coleccionista (es) m and f
• Tamil: please add this translation if you can
• Telugu: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Urdu: please add this translation if you can
• Uyghur: please add this translation if you can
• Uzbek: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can
• Volapük: (male or female) konletan (vo), (male) hikonletan (vo), (female) jikonletan (vo)
• Walloon: please add this translation if you can
• Wolof: please add this translation if you can
• Xhosa: please add this translation if you can
• Yiddish: זאַמלער (yi)
• Yoruba: please add this translation if you can
• Zulu: please add this translation if you can

person who is employed to collect payments

• Bulgarian: инкасатор (bg) (inkasator) m
• Czech: výběrčí (cs) m
• Finnish: veronkantaja (fi) (tax collector)

• French: percepteur (fr) m, encaisseur (fr) m, collecteur (fr) m
• German: Kassierer (de) m
• Khmer: អ្នកទារពន្ធ (km) (neak tie pʊən)

amplified terminal on a bipolar junction transistor

• Bulgarian: колектор (bg) (kolektor) m
• Finnish: kollektori (fi)
• French: collecteur (fr) m
• German: Kollektor (de) m

• Polish: kolektor (pl) m
• Russian: коллектор (ru) (kolléktor) m
• Serbo-Croatian: kolektor (sh) m, колектор (sh) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Jèrriais: collecteux m

• Welsh: casglwr (cy)