collaboration

[kuh-lab-uh-rey-shuhn]

noun

1. the act or process of working together or cooperating.

   Chat tools provide opportunity for real-time collaboration and dialogue.

2. a product resulting from working together or cooperating.

   This dictionary is a collaboration of many minds.

Other Word Forms

• noncollaboration noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of collaboration¹

First recorded in 1855–60; from French, from Late Latin collabōrāt ( us ) ( collaborate ) + French -ion -ion

Example Sentences

On Tuesday, the company unveiled its latest initiative: a futures and derivatives exchange, in collaboration with Susquehanna International Group.

Read more on Barron's

"This work will call for collaboration between particle physicists and astronomers," Zhang said.

Read more on Science Daily

“Shine” is a well-crafted yet slight collection, of interest primarily to pop fans who are curious about the art of songwriting and who want to better understand what he brings to his collaborations.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

At one of Nabholz’s current projects for a large global advisory firm, each plaza has roughly 12 workstations along the windows, including rooms designed to “make hybrid collaboration and individual focus actually work,” he says.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

When completed, the rigorously composed, historically inspired stone pavilion bore all the hallmarks of Johnson and Kelly’s more than half dozen collaborations.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• association 
• collusion 
• combination 
• concert 
• participation 
• partnership 
• teamwork 

When To Use

What does collaboration mean?

Collaboration is the act of working together, especially on a goal or shared project.It can also be used to refer to a product of collaboration, as in The new single is a  collaboration from the two pop stars. Collaboration is the noun form of the verb collaborate, meaning to work together.Collaboration is often used in a positive context to refer to two or more parties successfully working together on professional or artistic projects. It often implies not just cooperation but sharing and developing of each other’s ideas.Such a joint effort can be described with the adjective collaborative. People who collaborate are called collaborators.Collaboration can also be used in a much more specific way referring to cooperation as a traitor with enemy forces in one’s own country. This is much less commonly used than its general sense.Example: This project would not have happened without close collaboration between all the departments.