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Glite Dictionary
loan collection

loan collection

4.9
A group of items temporarily borrowed from owners for public display
  • noun
  • /loʊn kəˈlɛkʃən/
  • Jargon
translation icon : colección de préstamos
  • The museum's new exhibit features a loan collection of Impressionist paintings.

Examples

  • Several rare manuscripts from private owners are part of the loan collection on display this month.

  • The museum displayed a stunning loan collection of ancient artifacts.

  • The gallery organized a loan collection to celebrate the city's art history.

  • Have you seen the new loan collection at the gallery?

  • The museum's new exhibit features a loan collection of Impressionist paintings.

  • Several rare manuscripts from private owners are part of the loan collection on display this month.

  • The gallery organized a loan collection to celebrate the city's art history.

Surface Forms

loan collection singular
loan collections plural

Morphology

loan + collection

The noun-noun composition is directly interpretable: 'loan' in the sense 'items lent/on loan' + 'collection' (a set of items) yields 'a collection of items on loan'. This is a transparent, compositional pattern found across languages and in English museum contexts, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings can readily infer the MWE meaning (though context like 'museum' helps disambiguate from the financial sense of 'loan').

Etymology

The phrase loan collection comes from the simple idea that items are given out as a loan by their owners and brought together into a collection to be shown to the public. So, it means a group of artworks or objects temporarily lent 'for public exhibition'.