collected

American  

[kuh-lek-tid] / kəˈlɛk tɪd /

adjective

1. having control of one's faculties; self-possessed.

   Despite all the turmoil around him, Bob remained calm and collected.

2. brought or placed together; forming an aggregation from various sources.

   the money collected to build an orphanage; the collected essays of Thoreau.

3. Manège.

   1. (of a moving horse) noting a compact pose in which the legs are well under the body, the head is arched at the poll, the jaw is relaxed, etc.

   2. (of a gait of such a horse) characterized by short, elevated strides.

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collected British  

/ kəˈlɛktɪd /

adjective

1. in full control of one's faculties; composed

2. assembled in totality or brought together into one volume or a set of volumes

   the collected works of Dickens

3. (of a horse or a horse's pace) controlled so that movement is in short restricted steps

   a collected canter

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collected Idioms  

1. see cool, calm, and collected.

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Related Words

See calm.

Other Word Forms

• collectedly
  adverb
• collectedness
  noun
• uncollected
  adjective
• well-collected
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of collected

First recorded in 1600–10; collect ¹ + -ed ²

Explanation

Use the adjective collected to describe a person who stays cool and calm, even under pressure. There are certain people who always seem completely self-possessed and unflappable no matter what is going on around them. You can describe these people as collected. If a kid throws up on the school bus and the driver is unruffled, he is collected. A confident, poised trapeze artist is also collected. If you're upset, you might say, "I need to collect myself," and once you have calmed yourself, you are collected.

Example Sentences

Collected by gliders, floats and drifters, these instruments provide valuable information about the most turbulent region of the hurricane environment, called the boundary layer, where the air meets the ocean.

From BBC • Aug. 29, 2025

Collected year-round from 1968 to 1978, this data provided insight into the fish's diets -- what was in their stomachs -- and which prey was present in their environment at different temperatures.

From Science Daily • Feb. 27, 2024

Collected on a U.S. icebreaker, they fuel her research at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 13, 2023

The latest example is Collected Strategies, which is being started by several executives at the communications firm Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, along with Ed Hammond, a longtime mergers-and-acquisitions reporter for Bloomberg.

From New York Times • Jul. 9, 2023

Lying on my back on my bed, I thumbed through some pages of The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley.

From "The Stars Beneath Our Feet" by David Barclay Moore