Meaning & use
collage
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Meanings
nouncountable
a picture made by sticking pieces of paper, cloth, photographs, and similar materials onto a surface.
Grammar: Countable for one artwork; uncountable when talking about the technique: made with collage.
Patterns
- make a collage
- a collage of something
- a collage on a surface
For art class we made a collage from old magazines and fabric.
Her collage of family photos hangs in the hallway.
The children were busy cutting and gluing for their collages.
nouncountablefigurative
a collection or mixture of different things that appear together.
Grammar: Countable and often figurative: a collage of memories, voices, or images.
Patterns
- a collage of something
- a collage of sounds/images/memories
The film is a collage of old news clips and home videos.
Walking through the market, you hear a collage of languages.
His diary reads like a collage of dreams and half-finished thoughts.
Word forms
| plural | collages |
|---|
Common combinations
- make a collage
- We had to make a collage using only recycled paper.
- a collage of photographs
- The cover shows a collage of photographs from the 1960s.
- paper collage
- The artist is known for her bright paper collages.
- cut-and-paste collage
- The poster has a rough cut-and-paste collage feel.
- a collage of memories
- The book is a collage of memories from her childhood.
Synonyms and how they differ
- montage
- A montage is usually made from images or film edited together, often to show time passing; a collage is physical pieces stuck to a surface.
- mosaic
- A mosaic is made from small tiles or stones fitted together; a collage uses paper, cloth, or photos.
- mixture
- Mixture is the general word for things combined; collage suggests a visual or artistic jumble.
Word family
- collaged adjective
- made or decorated in the style of a collage.
- collagist noun
- an artist who makes collages.
Commonly confused: collage or college? collage or collage?
collage vs college
College is a place of higher education and sounds almost the same in fast speech; collage is the artwork.
collage vs collage
Remember the spelling: two l's, then -age, like "massage".
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses "collage" correctly.
Choose one answer.
A collage is made of or from materials, so "a collage of train tickets" is correct. "With" is possible for tools, but the other options break the pattern.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “collage”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.