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definitions

collage

[kuh-lahzh, koh-]
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noun

a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope.
a work of art produced by this technique.Compare assemblage(def 3).
an assemblage or occurrence of diverse elements or fragments in unlikely or unexpected juxtaposition: The experimental play is a collage of sudden scene shifts, long monologues, musical interludes, and slapstick.
a film that presents a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or images or shifts from one scene or image to another suddenly and without transition.

verb (used with object), col·laged, col·lag·ing.

to make a collage of: The artist has collaged old photos, cartoon figures, and telephone numbers into a unique work of art.

Origin of collage

1915–20; < French, equivalent to colle paste, glue (< Greek kólla) + -age -age
Related formscol·lag·ist, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for collage

photomontage

Examples from the Web for collage

Contemporary Examples of collage

Historical Examples of collage

  • He held in horror this shameful half-marriage that the language of slang had baptized, as with a stain: Collage.

  • The artistic technique of collage is based on a logic of choices beyond those of realistic representations.

  • Collage, as a technique, anticipates the generalized stage of sampling and compositing.

  • The convention of reading is broken; the text is manipulated like an image and offered as a collage to the reader.

  • In the whiche Universite is no Collage founded by eny quene of England hidertoward.

    Cambridge and its Story

    Charles William Stubbs

British Dictionary definitions for collage

collage

noun

an art form in which compositions are made out of pieces of paper, cloth, photographs, and other miscellaneous objects, juxtaposed and pasted on a dry ground
a composition made in this way
any work, such as a piece of music, created by combining unrelated styles
Derived Formscollagist, noun

Word Origin for collage

C20: French, from coller to stick, from colle glue, from Greek kolla
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for collage
n.

1919, from French collage "a pasting," from Old French coller "to glue," from Greek kolla "glue." Earliest reference is in Wyndham Lewis.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper