Other forms: collected, collecting, collects
To collect is to bring together many of the same kind of thing over time. Collect stamps, collect data, a collection of shells.
It also means to go and fetch somebody or something: collect the children from school, collect a parcel. That sense is British; American English says pick up. And it means to gather money for a cause: collecting for charity. Note collect yourself, meaning to regain composure, and collected as an adjective meaning calm. In America, to call collect means the person receiving pays, which is unrelated to any of the above.
1verbcollectTo bring together things of the same kind over time.
“He has collected railway timetables since he was nine.”
synonyms: gather, amass, accumulate
2verbfetchTo go and fetch somebody or something.
“She collects them from school on Thursdays.”
3verbgatherTo gather money for a cause.
“They collected nearly a thousand pounds in an afternoon.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
collect is a way of gathering.
Also accepted in games: gather
Latin colligere is com-, together, plus legere, to gather — the same verb behind lecture, select and legend, which is what is to be gathered up and read. Collecting has always been gathering, and the -lect in every one of them is the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*leǵ- — to gather, collect
Medieval Latin
collectare — to collect money
Old French
collecter
Middle English
collecten
English, today
collect
Built from
From Middle English collecten, a borrowing from Old French collecter, from Medieval Latin collectare (“to collect money”), from Latin collecta (“a collection of money, in Latin - a meeting, assemblage, in Medieval Latin a tax, also an assembly for prayer, a prayer”), feminine of collectus, past participle of colligo, conligo (“to gather together, collect, consider, conclude, infer”), from com- (“together”) + lego (“to gather”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European leǵ- (“to gather, collect”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA