What does collate mean?
Word: Collate
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Collate means to gather information from different places and put it in order.
Synonyms: assemble
How do you spell collate?
Syllables: col - late
Tricky part: Two l's sit together in the middle, though the ear catches only one, so colate is the usual slip.
Watch out for: colate, colatte
Memory tip: When you collect papers and then collate them, your hands do similar work, and both verbs carry the same pair of l's.
Collate in a sentence
Example 1: Please collate the worksheets so that each set runs from page one to page six.
Example 2: The editor will collate reports from every district before writing the article.
Example 3: We took an hour to collate the photographs for the school magazine.
Fun Fact
The word turns up on many office printers. Tick the collate box and each copy comes out with its pages in order, instead of all the page ones first.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word collated as used in the sentence:
Nikhil collated the rainfall readings from the four school weather stations into one chart.
a) compiled
b) ignored
c) scattered
d) discarded
Show answer
a) compiled. To compile is to bring separate items together into one record, just as Nikhil did with his chart.
Word Cookie
One word in this sentence is misspelt. Find it:
Each house captain must collete the sports day scores and hand the final sheet to the games teacher before lunch.
a) captain
b) teacher
c) final
d) collete
Show answer
d) collete. The vowel before the t is a, as in the noun collation.
Mingle-Mangle
The sentence contains a jumbled word. Choose the word it hides:
The librarian asked two helpers to elcloat the list of overdue books from all three shelves.
a) collect
b) collapse
c) collate
d) isolate
Show answer
c) collate. Seven letters with no s and just one c fit only one of these verbs.
Spell-o-Spell
One word in the list is misspelt. Choose the meaning of the misspelt word.
1. manuscript 2. collate 3. bibliography 4. anthalogy
a) a book of poems or stories by different writers
b) a text written by hand, before printing
c) a list of the books used in a piece of work
d) to put gathered facts together in sequence
Show answer
a) a book of poems or stories by different writers. Anthology has an o after the h, so anthalogy is the misspelt one.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which of these tasks involves this skill?
a) lending a printed report to a friend
b) combining ten club reports into one file
c) throwing away the reports from last year
d) reading a single report aloud in class
Show answer
b) combining ten club reports into one file
2. Someone doing this with the marks of every class is most likely working with:
a) an empty folder
b) several separate lists
c) a blank notebook
d) a single short note
Show answer
b) several separate lists
