different between picking vs collect

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?k??/
• Rhymes: -?k??

Verb

picking

1. present participle of pick

Noun

picking (plural pickings)

1. A gathering to pick fruit.

   We went to a strawberry picking last June.

2. (usually pluralized) Items remaining after others have selected the best; scraps, as of food.
   • 1899, F. Marion Crawford, Via Crucis, ch. 9:

     Gilbert wandered through . . .the haunts of ravenous dogs and homeless cats that kept themselves alive on the choice pickings of the city's garbage.

3. (usually pluralized) Income or other gains, especially if obtained in an unscrupulous or objectionable manner.
   • 1919, Anthony Hope, The Secret of the Tower, ch. 11:

     He liked the pickings which the job brought him much better than the job itself.

4. Something picked or pulled out.

   The schoolboy flicked his nose pickings across the classroom.

5. The act of making a choice; selection.
6. The final finishing of woven fabrics by removing burs, etc.
7. The removal of defects from electrotype plates.
8. Dabbing in stoneworking.

Synonyms

• (items remaining after others have selected the best): leftovers
• (unscrupulously acquired gains): See Thesaurus:booty

Derived terms

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