Word of the Day

: November 28, 2015

colligate

verb KAH-luh-gayt

What It Means

1 : to bind, unite, or group together

2 : to subsume (isolated facts) under a general concept

3 : to be or become a member of a group or unit

colligate in Context

"For instance, many words colligate with the word 'the,' which is a grammatical marker of definiteness rather than a word that carries significant semantic content." — Tony McEnery and Andrew Hardie, Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice, 2012

"Research that examines the combined effect of lifestyle factors on mortality is plentiful, and data have been colligated in a recent meta-analysis." — Valentina A. Andreeva et al., The American Journal of Public Health, November 2014

Did You Know?

Colligate (not to be confused with collocate or collegiate) is a technical term that descends from Latin colligare, itself from com- ("with") plus ligare ("to tie"). Which of the following words is NOT tied to ligare?

ligature, ligament, lien, rely, ally, collogue, oblige, furl, league

Ligature, ligament, lien, rely, ally, oblige, furl, and league (in the sense of "an association of persons, groups, or teams") can all be traced back along varying paths to ligare. That leaves only collogue (meaning "to confer")—whose origin is unknown. (Collocate and collegiate are also unrelated via ligare.)