collocation

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A pair or group of words that are often used together and sound natural to native speakers.

   "Heavy rain" is a common collocation in English.

2. 2
   noun

   The act of placing things, especially words, close together.

   The collocation of these two ideas in one sentence was confusing.

Learned borrowing from Latin collocātiō (“a putting together”). By surface analysis, col- (“together”) + location. The technical sense in linguistics was established in 1951, although it may actually be earlier. First attested in 1605.

Topics