COLLECTOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does collector mean? 

• COLLECTOR (noun)
  The noun COLLECTOR has 4 senses:

1. a person who collects things

2. a person who is employed to collect payments (as for rent or taxes)

3. a crater that has collected cosmic material hitting the earth

4. the electrode in a transistor through which a primary flow of carriers leaves the region between the electrodes

  Familiarity information: COLLECTOR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLLECTOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who collects things

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

aggregator; collector

Hypernyms ("collector" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "collector"):

archivist (a person in charge of collecting and cataloguing archives)

conchologist (a collector and student of mollusc shells)

coin collector; numismatist; numismatologist (a collector and student of money (and coins in particular))

packrat (a collector of miscellaneous useless objects)

philatelist; stamp collector (a collector and student of postage stamps)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who is employed to collect payments (as for rent or taxes)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

accumulator; collector; gatherer

Hypernyms ("collector" is a kind of...):

worker (a person who works at a specific occupation)

Domain category:

revenue enhancement; tax; taxation (charge against a citizen's person or property or activity for the support of government)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "collector"):

conductor (the person who collects fares on a public conveyance)

gleaner (someone who gathers something in small pieces (e.g. information) slowly and carefully)

rent collector (a person who goes from house to house collecting rents for the owner)

Instance hyponyms:

Gardner; Isabella Stewart Gardner (United States collector and patron of art who built a museum in Boston to house her collection and opened it to the public in 1903 (1840-1924))

Derivation:

collect (call for and obtain payment of)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A crater that has collected cosmic material hitting the earth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("collector" is a kind of...):

crater (a bowl-shaped depression formed by the impact of a meteorite or bomb)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The electrode in a transistor through which a primary flow of carriers leaves the region between the electrodes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("collector" is a kind of...):

electrode (a conductor used to make electrical contact with some part of a circuit)

Holonyms ("collector" is a part of...):

electronic transistor; junction transistor; transistor (a semiconductor device capable of amplification)

 Context examples 

Had it been carried down from any neighbouring street, it must have passed the station barriers, where a collector is always standing.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

People who accumulate fat inside liver cells called Kupffer cells, specifically a part of these cells named lysosomes that act like cellular garbage collectors, appear more likely to progress to serious liver disease.

(High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet Causes Lasting Harmful Effects on Liver, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

To my astonishment it was none other than my strange old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at least, wedged under his right arm.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her plants, her books—of which she had been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling—her writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I remember that as I picked them up, I observed the title of one of them, The Origin of Tree Worship, and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile, who, either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)