Noun

(en noun)

An item of goods or supplies, especially food, obtained for future use.

* Francis Bacon

making provision for the relief of strangers

* Milton

And of provisions laid in large, / For man and beast.

The act of providing, or making previous preparation.

(Shakespeare)

Money set aside for a future event.

(accounting) A liability or contra account to recognise likely future adverse events associated with current transactions.

We increased our provision for bad debts on credit sales going into the recession.

(legal) A clause in a legal instrument, a law, etc., providing for a particular matter; stipulation; proviso.

An arrest shall be made in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

(Roman Catholic) Regular induction into a benefice, comprehending nomination, collation, and installation.

(UK, historical) A nomination by the pope to a benefice before it became vacant, depriving the patron of his right of presentation.

(Blackstone)

Noun

(en noun)

A set of items or amount of material procured or gathered together.

*

Secondly, I continue to base my concepts on intensive study of a limited suite of collections , rather than superficial study of every packet that comes to hand.

* (William Whewell)

Collections of moisture.

* Dunglison

A purulent collection .

Multiple related objects associated as a group.

* , chapter=5

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.}}

The activity of collecting.

(topology, analysis) A set of sets.

A gathering of money for charitable or other purposes, as by passing a contribution box for donations.

(obsolete) The act of inferring or concluding from premises or observed facts; also, that which is inferred.

* (John Milton)

We may safely say thus, that wrong collections have been hitherto made out of those words by modern divines.

(UK) The jurisdiction of a collector of excise.

A set of college exams generally taken at the start of the term.