Collocate Meaning: Definition, Examples, and Translations
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collocate
[ˈkōləˌkāt ]
Definition
word usage
To collocate means to arrange or place words or phrases together in a way that is typically used in a language. This often involves pairing words that commonly appear together, such as 'strong coffee' rather than 'powerful coffee'. Understanding collocations can greatly enhance one's fluency and naturalness in speech and writing. It also plays a crucial role in language learning, as it helps learners to produce language that sounds idiomatic and appropriate.
Synonyms
cluster, combine, place together.
Examples of usage
- Do these words collocate naturally?
- He often collocates adjectives with nouns.
- In academic writing, it's important to collocate terms correctly.
Translations
To see the translation, please select a language from the options available.
Interesting Facts
Linguistics
- Common examples include phrases like 'make a decision' or 'fast food', which sound natural together.
- In learning a new language, understanding common word pairs can enhance fluency and comprehension.
- Collocates can change based on regional dialects, illustrating how language evolves in different cultures.
Education
- Teachers encourage students to learn collocations to improve their writing and speaking skills.
- Vocabulary instruction often includes collocations to help students remember words together more effectively.
- Test results show that students using collocated phrases in writing can achieve higher scores.
Computational Linguistics
- Natural language processing models often use collocations to enhance text understanding and generation.
- Search engines utilize collocation data to improve the relevance of search results.
- Machine learning algorithms analyze collocations to assist in predictive text and language translation.
Cultural Context
- Certain collocations can reflect cultural nuances, like 'public holiday' in English versus 'national holiday' in other languages.
- Idiomatic expressions often arise from collocations, making them rich for cultural exploration.
- Understanding collocations aids in navigating socially accepted phrases in different cultures.
Origin of 'collocate'
Main points about word origin
- The term comes from the Latin word 'collocare', meaning 'to place together'.
- It first appeared in the early 20th century, influenced by the development of modern linguistics.
- Related terms include 'collocation', which describes how words commonly pair up.
The term 'collocate' is derived from the Latin word 'collocare', which means to place together. It entered the English language in the mid-20th century, primarily in the context of linguistics and language studies. The prefix 'co-' suggests a partnership or cooperation, while 'locate' pertains to positioning or placing. Hence, 'collocate' fundamentally implies the action of placing words together in a specific order that reflects their conventional usage in the language. This concept has gained increasing importance with the rise of corpus linguistics, which emphasizes the study of word combinations in large databases of spoken and written texts. The phenomenon is significant not only for native speakers but also for ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, who benefit from understanding common combinations to achieve more natural-sounding English.