Emily Dickinson Lexicon

COL-LA'TION, n.

1. The act of bringing or laying together, and comparing; a comparison of one copy or thing of a like kind with another. – Pope.
2. The act of conferring or bestowing; a gift. – Ray.
3. In the canon law, the presentation of a clergyman to a benefice by a bishop, who has it in his own gift or patronage. Collation includes both presentation and institution. When the patron of a church is not a bishop, he presents his clerk for admission, and the bishop institutes him; but if a bishop is the patron, his presentation and institution are one act, and are called collation. – Blackstone.
4. In common law, the presentation of a copy to its original, and a comparison made by examination, to ascertain its conformity; also, the report of the act made by the proper officers. – Encyc.
5. In Scots law, the right which an heir has of throwing the whole heritable and movable estates of the deceased into one mass, and sharing it equally with others who are of the same degree of kindred.
6. A repast between full meals; as, a cold collation. Collation of seals, denotes one seal set on the same label, on the reverse of another. – Encyc.