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Glite Dictionary
to collocate with

to collocate with

7.4
Happen together often in speech or writing
  • phrasal verb
  • /ˈkɒləˌkeɪt wɪð/
  • Specialized
translation icon : coocurrir con
  • Some adjectives naturally collocate with certain nouns, like 'strong' with 'coffee'.

Examples

  • In scientific writing, 'significant' usually collocates with 'difference' to describe important results.

  • Consistent with pedagogical discourses of an optimal learning environment, relationship collocates with terms such as close, between, and teacher.

    Academic text (2015)

  • In English, the word 'break' often collocates with 'fast' to form the phrase 'break fast'.

Synonyms

to go with
vsto collocate with
171 2.2

To be present at the same time as something

is specifically about words that frequently occur together in language
to collocate
vsto collocate with
  • Specialized
7.9

To appear together more often than expected by chance

is about words that simply occur frequently together without statistical claim
to cooccur with
vsto collocate with
6.3

Happen or appear at the same time as another thing, often about words in text

is limited to words rather than to any two things that appear together
to co-occur
vsto collocate with
6.3

To happen at the same time as something else

is about words that regularly occur together in language

How Often

to collocate with
  • Specialized
7.4

Surface Forms

collocate with infinitive
collocated with past
collocated with past participle
collocating with present participle
collocates with third person singular

Morphology

collocate + with

The verb 'collocate' already encodes the notion of occurring together frequently and the preposition 'with' marks accompaniment or co-occurrence, so 'collocate with' is directly compositional as 'to occur together with'. This simple, literal combination follows common cross-linguistic patterns and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.

Etymology

Collocate with comes from parts co- (meaning 'together') and locate (meaning 'place'), so imagine two words sitting next to each other on a page. That's why when we say one word collocates with another, we mean the two words often 'appear together' in language.