collations

Noun

collation (countable and uncountable, plural collations)

1. The act of bringing things together and comparing them; comparison.
   • November 8, 1717, The Bishop of Rochester, letter to Alexander Pope
     I return you your Milton, which, upon collation, I find to be revised, and augmented, in several places
2. The act of collating pages or sheets of a book, or from printing etc.
3. A collection, a gathering.
   • 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.2010 April 29, Will Dean, The Guardian
4. (obsolete) A conference or consultation.
5. (in plural) The Collationes Patrum in Scetica Eremo Commorantium by John Cassian, an important ecclesiastical work. (Now usually with capital initial.)
   • 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 […]1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC, book I, page [55]
6. A reading held from the work mentioned above, as a regular service in Benedictine monasteries.
   • 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.1843, TD Fosbroke, British Monachism, page 52

See all 16 meanings of collation