collision

From Middle French collision, from Late Latin collisio, from Latin collidere, past participle collisus (“to dash together”); see collide.

• IPA^(key): /kəˈlɪʒən/

• Audio (southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʒən

collision (countable and uncountable, plural collisions)

1. An instance of colliding.
   • 1994, Stephen Fry, The Hippopotamus Chapter 2

     At the very moment he cried out, David realised that what he had run into was only the Christmas tree. Disgusted with himself at such cowardice, he spat a needle from his mouth, stepped back from the tree and listened. There were no sounds of any movement upstairs: no shouts, no sleepy grumbles, only a gentle tinkle from the decorations as the tree had recovered from the collision.

2. (physics) Any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. In a collision, physical contact of two bodies is not necessary.
3. (software compilation) Clipping of naming collision.

• allision

• collide

• collision in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• collision in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

From Latin collīsiō.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.li.zjɔ̃/

• audio

  (file)

collision f (plural collisions)

1. collision (an instance of colliding)

• collision frontale

• “collision”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.