English · Idiom Candidate

collect dust

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To be unused or forgotten for a long time

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

bị bỏ qua hoặc lãng quên trong thời gian dài

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: gather dust

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The gun was clean and well - oiled, but in places the oil had begun to thicken and to collect dust.

Dried and etched surfaces should be peeled immediately, as they collect dust rapidly.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “collect dust” mean?

To be unused or forgotten for a long time Literally: gather dust

Is “collect dust” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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