The act of bringing things together and comparing them; comparison. / The act of collating pages or sheets of a book, or from printing etc. / A collection, a gathering.

A person who collates. / (computing) A program or algorithm that collates. / (computing, historical) A machine that selects, merges and matches decks of punch cards.

(obsolete) To partake of a collation, or light meal.

(transitive) To examine diverse documents and so on, to discover similarities and differences. / (transitive) To assemble something in a logical sequence.

present participle of collation