"collide" - Word of the Day from the OED

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collide, v.

SECOND EDITION 1989

(klad)  [ad. L. colldre to strike or clash together, f. col- together + lædre to injure, damage.] 

    1. trans. To bring into collision or violent contact, strike or dash together. Now rare or Obs.

1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. I. i. II. vi, The outward [ayre] being stroke or collided by a solide body. 1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseud. Ep. 52 The inflamable effluencies discharged from the bodies collided. 1755 JOHNSON, Collide, v.a., to strike against each other; to beat, to dash, to knock together. 1871 M. COLLINS Inn of Str. Meetings 18, I whom dreams encumber, By the keen clash of gross events collided.

    2. intr. To come into collision, come forcibly into contact, strike or dash together. In Nuclear Physics, spec. of particles.
  (When first used of railway trains or ships in collision, c1860-70, it was much objected to as an Americanism.)

1700 DRYDEN Fables, Pythag. Philos. 14 The flints..thus toss'd in air, collide. 1746 R. JAMES Introd. Moufet's Health's Improv. 9 The Blood collides against the Sides of the Aorta. 1850 CARLYLE Latter-d. Pamph. iv. 22 Tumble and rage along, ye rotten waifs and wrecks; clash and collide. 1866 TYNDALL in Fortn. Rev. III. 135 The attraction urges them [atoms]. They collide, they recoil. 1880 [see COLLISION 1]. 1886 Daily News 14 Dec. 2/8 Charles, brigantine, in entering the harbour.collided with Sparkling Foam, barquentine. 1938 R. W. LAWSON tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) iv. 56 The -rays do not ionize directly, but split off electrons from the molecules with which they collide. 1942 STRANATHAN Particles i. 16 When a negative ion moves through a gas under the action of an electric field, it collides with a number of neutral molecules, some of which become ionized as a result of the collision.

    3. fig.    a. To come into collision or be in conflict; to clash, conflict.

1864 SIR F. PALGRAVE Norm. & Eng. IV. 326 How often would he not collide against the Bishop of Sorimum? 1875 POSTE Gaius I. Comm. (ed. 2) 152 Overruling the ordinary course of law where it collided with equity. 1880 G. DUFF in 19th Cent. No. 38. 667 Our interests would be about as likely to collide as those of a shark and a tiger.

    b. To come together (without conflict). rare.

1877 H. A. PAGE De Quincey II xix. 191 In great crises their interests collide and harmonise to augment the stability of institutions.

    Hence collided ppl. a., colliding vbl. n. and ppl. a.

1768-74 TUCKER Lt. Nat. (1852) I 345 By the collision of flint and steel..particles detached from the colliding bodies. 1865 LECKY Ration. II. vi. 386 To restrain the action of colliding passions. 1883 Daily News 25 June 5/6 The head~gear of the colliding vessel..became entangled.

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