Pick up or gather person(s) or thing(s); commonly used in reference to children and tickets.
“Ms. Knox, 24, from Seattle, was returned to prison to collect her possessions and left less than a few hours later.” (New York Times, October 3, 2011)
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What struck me as oddest about this quote was the phrase “less than a few.” I’m fairly certain I’ve never come across that before, but I googled it, and it does, in fact, get well over 100,000 ghits.
Very odd phrase.
Seriously, you don’t use “collect”? I am surprised. I thought it was just a word everyone knew.
My wife is British/Italian, and this is one of the words that trips our very American kids up when they use it. I’ve heard each of them, on more than one occasion, use “collect” this way, like their mother, only to have their interlocutor ask what they are talking about or ask them why they used “collect” for “pick up.” Presumably, they have dropped the usage by now, though their mother has not– “I’ll be right back after I collect Chiara.”