collage

Etymology

It is borrowed from French collage (“a pasting, gluing”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from coller (“to glue”) and the suffix -age,^[6][7] the verb coming from colle (“glue”),^[8][9][6] from Vulgar Latin *colla,^[8][6][10] from Ancient Greek κόλλα (kólla, “glue”).^[8][3][10] Etymonline calls the Greek word of uncertain origin, perhaps Pre-Greek.^[3] The same Greek noun is the source of collagen, colloid and protocol.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

An abstract form of art in which photographs, scraps of paper, newspaper cuttings, string and the like are set side by side and glued to a surface: 1919, in Wyndham Lewis's The Caliph's Design.^[2][8][3] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1915–20.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Borrowed as the name of a technique of the modern art of the time, the word soon also named a single work made in this way.^[9][11][6] It was then extended to any work, such as a piece of music or writing, made by combining unrelated fragments or styles,^[9][6] and more loosely to any jumbled collection of things, impressions or events.^[11][12] A verb, to make a collage of or from, followed in 1964.^[4][8][6]

Timeline

• 1919 – an art form in which materials are glued to a surface.^[2][8][3]
• 1964 – verb, to assemble into a collage.^[4][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An art form in which pieces of paper, photographs, cloth and other materials are arranged and stuck to a backing.^[9][12][2]
2. A work made in this way: She framed a collage of old train tickets.^[9][6][12]
3. A work, such as a piece of music or a film, that combines unrelated styles or fragments.^[9][6]
4. A varied or jumbled collection of things: a collage of memories.^[12][11]

Verb

1. To make a collage from things, or to decorate something with a collage.^[6]

Word family

• collagist
• collage film

Related words

• collagen
• colloid
• protocol

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press