collect one's thoughts
collect one's thoughts verb: to become mentally composed, especially after being distressed, surprised, or disoriented; to become calm or organized in one's emotional state or thinking, as in preparation for a conversation, speech, decision, etc.
Verb
collect one's thoughts (third-person singular simple present collects one's thoughts, present participle collecting one's thoughts, simple past and past participle collected one's thoughts)
- To become mentally composed, especially after being distressed, surprised, or disoriented; to become calm or organized in one's emotional state or thinking, as in preparation for a conversation, speech, decision, etc.
- I got up feverish and nervous. I walked out before breakfast, striving to collect my thoughts and tranquilize my feelings.1820, Washington Irving, “The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood,”, in The Crayon Papers
- I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I proposed to open business.1857, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 7, in The Professor
- Synonyms:
- collect one's wits, gather one's thoughts, gather one's wits
Synonyms of collect one's thoughts
Forms of collect one's thoughts
| third-person singular present | collects one's thoughts |
|---|---|
| present participle | collecting one's thoughts |
| past participle | collected one's thoughts |
| past | collected one's thoughts |
Questions about collect one's thoughts
- What does collect one's thoughts mean?
- Collect one's thoughts means to become mentally composed, especially after being distressed, surprised, or disoriented; to become calm or organized in one's emotional state or thinking, as in preparation for a conversation, speech, decision, etc.
- What part of speech is collect one's thoughts?
- Collect one's thoughts is a verb.
- What is the past tense of collect one's thoughts?
- The past tense of collect one's thoughts is collected one's thoughts.
Words near collect one's thoughts in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: collect one's thoughts (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-collect one's thoughts.ogg.
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