coll

From Middle English collen, from Old French coler, acoler (“accoll, throw arms round neck of”); ultimately from Latin ad + collum (“neck”).

• (MLE) IPA^(key): /qʰʊu̯/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɒl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɑl/
• Rhymes: -ɒl
• Homophones: col; caul, call (cot–caught merger)

coll (third-person singular simple present colls, present participle colling, simple past and past participle colled)

1. (ambitransitive) To hug or embrace.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 420:

     So hauing ſayd, her twixt her armes twaine / Shee ſtreightly ſtraynd, and colled tenderly

   • 1593, Thomas Nashe, The Choice of Valentines:

     "As how, my lambkin," blushing, she replide, / "Because I in this dancing schoole abide? / If that it be, that breede's this discontent, / We will remoue the camp incontinent: / For shelter onelie, sweete heart, came I hither, / And to auoide the troblous stormie weather; / But now the coaste is cleare, we will be gonne, / Since, but thy self, true louer I haue none." / With that she sprung full lightlie to my lips / And fast about the neck me colle's, and clips ...

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 82:

     'You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round 'ee, an' to kiss and to coll 'ee all at once.'

   • 1995, Anthony Burgess, Byrne:

     They kissed and colled in parks and fields and, better, a / Warm bed, her own.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈkɔʎ]

• Audio (Catalonia):

  (file)

Inherited from Latin collum. Compare Occitan còl, French cou, and Sicilian coḍḍu.

coll m (plural colls)

1. (anatomy) neck
2. (anatomy) throat

   Synonym: gola

   mal de coll ― sore throat

3. (clothing) collar (part of a garment)
4. neckline
5. (card games) suit

Inherited from Latin collis (“hill”).

coll m (plural colls)

2. (archaic or regional) hill

   Synonyms: puig, turó

3. col, pass (through hills)

   Synonym: pas

• collet

• “coll”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “coll” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “coll”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026

• call (Ulster)

From Old Irish coll, from Proto-Celtic *koslos (“hazel”) (compare Welsh cyll).

• (Galway) IPA^(key): /kaul̪ˠ/^[1]
• (Mayo) IPA^(key): /kol̪ˠ/^[2]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /kal̪ˠ/^[3] (corresponding to the form call)

coll m (genitive singular coill)

1. hazel
2. the letter C in the Ogham alphabet

• cnó coill
• collchnó
• crann coill

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “coll”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

• IPA^(key): /ˈkol̪/

From Proto-Celtic *koslos (“hazel”), from Proto-Indo-European *kóslos (“hazel”) (compare Welsh cyll).

coll m

1. hazel (tree or shrub of the genus Corylus)

• Irish: coll
• Manx: coull
• Scottish Gaelic: coll

From Proto-Celtic *koldom (“destruction”), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂- (“to break”).^[1]

coll n

1. destruction, injury, violation

• coillid (“to destroy”)
  • Irish: caill (“to lose”)

• Middle Irish: coll, call m, coill, caill f
  • Scottish Gaelic: coll m (“destruction”)
  • Irish: caill f (“loss”)
  • Manx: coayl m (“loss”)

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 coll (‘hazel tree’)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “2 coll (‘destruction’)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

• IPA^(key): /kʰɔul̪ˠ/

From Old Irish coll (“hazel”), from Proto-Celtic *koslos (“hazel”) (compare Welsh cyll).

coll m (genitive coill)

1. hazel (tree)
2. (obsolete) the letter C in the Ogham alphabet

From Old Irish coll (“destruction”), from Proto-Celtic *koldom (“destruction”).

coll m

1. destruction

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /kɔɬ/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /koːɬ/, /kɔɬ/
• Rhymes: -ɔɬ

From Proto-Celtic *koldom (“destruction”).

coll m (uncountable)

1. loss

   Synonyms: aball, methiant, diffyg, pall

coll (feminine singular coll, plural coll, not comparable)

1. lost, missing

• pengoll (“headless”)

See cyll (“hazel”).

coll (plural, singular collen f)

1. (obsolete) hazel
2. (obsolete) twig

• (current) cyll (“hazel”)
• mapgoll (“avens”)

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke, et al., editors (1950–present), “coll”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies

coll (definite form coll bi)

1. summit, peak, tip
2. cormorant

• Fal, Arame; Santos, Rosine; Doneux, Jean Léonce (1990), Dictionnaire wolof-français, Paris: Éditions KARTHALA, →ISBN, page 53