collaboration

American  

[kuh-lab-uh-ray-shuhn] / kəˌlæb əˈreɪ ʃən /

noun

• collaborations
  plural

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.

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collaboration British  

/ kəˌlæbəˈreɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of working with another or others on a joint project

2. something created by working jointly with another or others

3. the act of cooperating as a traitor, esp with an enemy occupying one's own country

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Usage

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. 

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• collaborationist
  noun
• noncollaboration
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• collaborations
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of collaboration

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

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Explanation

When you join a group of friends to build a huge sandcastle on the beach, your impressive structure is the result of collaboration, or working together toward a common goal. Working with another person — or a group of people — to make something together is collaboration. You can also describe the result of your work, like the elaborately decorated cake you made with your best friend, as a collaboration. During World War II, the word collaboration began being used to mean "working traitorously with an enemy," and became a very serious crime.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

collaboration collaborations

It’s a familiar teenage moment that arrives early in “Mouse,” the third collaboration from filmmaking partners Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026

The international research effort was led by Professor Dong-Yeun Koh at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, known as KAIST, in collaboration with Professor Ryan Lively's research group at Georgia Tech.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026

The company is launching a Thanksgiving turkey stick, produced in collaboration with four-time James Beard award winner Andrew Zimmern.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

This episode originally aired as a Slate Live on YouTube, produced in collaboration with Slate’s politics newsletter The Surge.

From Slate ● Oct. 30, 2026

American universities, already beginning to enjoy the fruits of collaboration with big business, duly put this relationship to work.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

They have manufactured scarcity with limited-time smoothie collaborations with celebrities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026

The Emmy-nominated actor and the Grammy-winning musician, also known for collaborations with pop stars Taylor Swift and Lorde, separated in the summer.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026

Three collaborations with other Stanford research groups are already underway or in development, demonstrating the range of questions the technology could help investigate.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026

The upcoming sixth installment in Sarah J. Maas’s romantasy series “A Court of Thorns and Roses” is drawing collaborations with brands including Target, Fine’ry, Knix and Loungefly.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

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Related Words

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

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