different between bunch vs collect

English

Etymology

From Middle English bunche, bonche (“hump, swelling”), of uncertain origin.

Perhaps a variant of *bunge (compare dialectal bung (“heap, grape bunch”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunk?, *bunkô, *bung? (“heap, crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?en??-, *b?éng??us (“thick, dense, fat”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Bunke (“bone”), West Frisian bonke (“bone, lump, bump”), Dutch bonk (“lump, bone”), Low German Bunk (“bone”), German Bunge (“tuber”), Danish bunke (“heap, pile”), Faroese bunki (“heap, pile”); Hittite [Term?] (/panku/, “total, entire”), Tocharian B pkante (“volume, fatness”), Lithuanian búož? (“knob”), Ancient Greek ????? (pakhús, “thick”), Sanskrit ??? (bahú, “thick; much”)).

Alternatively, perhaps from a variant or diminutive of bump (compare hump/hunch, lump/lunch, etc.); or from dialectal Old French bonge (“bundle”) (compare French bongeau, bonjeau, bonjot), from West Flemish bondje, diminutive of West Flemish bond (“bundle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Noun

bunch (plural bunches)

1. A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
2. (cycling) The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
3. An informal body of friends.

   • “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, […], the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"

4. (US, informal) A considerable amount.

5. (informal) An unmentioned amount; a number.

6. (forestry) A group of logs tied together for skidding.
7. (geology, mining) An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
   • 1874, David Page, Economic Geology: Or, Geology in Its Relations to the Arts and Manufactures

     The ore may be disseminated throughout the matrix in minute particles, as gold in quartz; in parallel threads, strings, and plates, as with copper; in irregular pockets or bunches

8. (textiles) The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
9. An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.

10. A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.

Synonyms

• (group of similar things): cluster, group
• (informal body of friends): pack, group, gang, circle
• (unusual concentration of ore): ore pocket, pocket, pocket of ore, kidney, nest, nest of ore, ore bunch, bunch of ore

Derived terms

• buncha (bunch of)

Translations

Verb

bunch (third-person singular simple present bunches, present participle bunching, simple past and past participle bunched)

1. (transitive) To gather into a bunch.
2. (transitive) To gather fabric into folds.
3. (intransitive) To form a bunch.
4. (intransitive) To be gathered together in folds
5. (intransitive) To protrude or swell
   • 1728, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England

     Bunching out into a large round knob at one end.

Synonyms

• (form a bunch): cluster, group

Derived terms

• bunch up

Translations

English

Etymology 1

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 Late Latin a meeting, assemblage, in Medieval Latin a tax, also an assembly for prayer, a prayer”), feminine of collectus, past participle of colligere, conligere (“to gather together, collect, consider, conclude, infer”), from com- (“together”) + legere (“to gather”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??l?kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt

Verb

collect (third-person singular simple present collects, present participle collecting, simple past and past participle collected)

1. (transitive) To gather together; amass.

2. (transitive) To get; particularly, get from someone.

3. (transitive) To accumulate (a number of similar or related objects), particularly for a hobby or recreation.
4. (transitive, now rare) To form a conclusion; to deduce, infer. (Compare gather, get.)
   • 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XVII, section 20

     […] which consequence, I conceive, is very ill collected.

   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, page 292-3:

     the riot is so great that it is very difficult to collect what is being said.

5. (intransitive, often with on or against) To collect payments.

6. (intransitive) To come together in a group or mass.

7. (transitive) To infer; to conclude.

   • Whence some collect that the former word imports a plurality of persons.

8. (transitive, of a vehicle or driver) To collide with or crash into (another vehicle or obstacle).

   The truck veered across the central reservation and collected a car that was travelling in the opposite direction.

Synonyms

• (to gather together): aggregate, gather up; see also Thesaurus:round up
• (to get from someone): receive, secure; see also Thesaurus:receive
• (to accumulate items for a hobby): amound, gather; see also Thesaurus:accumulate
• (to infer, conclude, form a conclusion): assume, construe
• (to collect payments):
• (to come together in a group or mass): group, mass, merge; see also Thesaurus:assemble or Thesaurus:coalesce
• (to collide with): bump into, plough into, run into

Hyponyms

• garbage collect

Translations

Adjective

collect (not comparable)

1. To be paid for by the recipient, as a telephone call or a shipment.

Translations

Adverb

collect (not comparable)

1. With payment due from the recipient.

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Latin ?r?ti? ad collectam (“prayer towards the congregation”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?l?kt/, /?k?l?kt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?l?kt/

Noun

collect (plural collects) (sometimes capitalized)

1. (Christianity) The prayer said before the reading of the epistle lesson, especially one found in a prayerbook, as with the Book of Common Prayer.

Translations

Further reading

• collect in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• collect in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• collect at OneLook Dictionary Search