take up a collection
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Collect money from people for a cause or charity
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Thu thập tiền từ mọi người vì một mục đích hoặc từ thiện
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: gather funds from individuals
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The church took up a collection for the disaster victims
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “take up a collection” mean?
Collect money from people for a cause or charity Literally: gather funds from individuals
Is “take up a collection” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.