collar

plural collars

1. Clothes that encircle the neck.
   1. The part of an upper garment (shirt, jacket, etc.) that fits around the neck and throat, especially if sewn from a separate piece of fabric.

      It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.

      1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01

      1 more example

      Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.

      1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   2. A decorative band or other fabric around the neckline.
   3. A chain worn around the neck.
   4. A similar detachable item.
   5. A coloured ring round the neck of a bird or mammal.
   6. A band or chain around an animal's neck, used to restrain and/or identify it.

      Make sure your dog has a collar holding an identification tag.

   7. A part of harness designed to distribute the load around the shoulders of a draft animal.
   8. archaicA hangman's knot.

      Synonyms: halter, Bridport dagger, halter, hangman's knot, hangman's noose, hempen collar, hempen cravat

2. A piece of meat from the neck of an animal.

   a collar of brawn

3. engineeringAny encircling device or structure.

   A nylon collar kept the bolt from damaging the surface underneath.

   1 more example

   In this case, slide the collar of the flapper over the overflow tube until it seats against the bottom of the flush valve.

   Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-to (page 356)

   1. engineeringA physical lockout device to prevent operation of a mechanical signal lever.
   2. architectureA ring or cincture.
   3. architectureA collar beam.
   4. businessA curb, or a horizontal timbering, around the mouth of a shaft.
4. in compoundsOf or pertaining to a certain category of professions as symbolized by typical clothing.
5. biologyThe neck or line of junction between the root of a plant and its stem
6. A ringlike part of a mollusk in connection with the esophagus.
7. nauticalAn eye formed in the bight or bend of a shroud or stay to go over the masthead; also, a rope to which certain parts of rigging, as dead-eyes, are secured.
8. slangAn arrest.

   The collar was made less than twenty-four hours after the hunky bastards butchered the old man.

   2013, Dorothy Uhnak, Law and Order

9. businessA trading strategy using options such that there is both an upper limit on profit and a lower limit on loss, constructed through taking equal but opposite positions in a put and a call with different strike prices.
10. mathematicsA topological neighborhood around a submanifold that can be deformed to preserve a specified condition or structure.

present singular third person collars · participle present collaring · participle past collared · past collared

1. transitiveTo grab or seize by the collar or neck.
2. transitiveTo place a collar on, to fit with one.

   Collar and leash aggressive dogs.

   1 more example

   (Follow me, don't follow me.) I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush. (Collar me, don't collar me.) I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush.

   1988 November 8, R.E.M., “Orange Crush”, in Green

3. To surround or encircle.
4. transitiveTo seize, capture or detain.
5. transitiveTo steal.

   "Ho, aboard the Salt Junk Sarah, Rollin" home across the line, The Bo'sun collared the Captain's hat And threw it in the brine.

   1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 52

6. transitiveTo preempt, control stringently and exclusively.
7. transitivegovernmentTo arrest.

   Britain’s police are especially zealous. Officers spend thousands of hours sifting through potentially offensive posts and arrest 30 people a day. Among those collared were a man who ranted about immigration on Facebook and a couple who criticised their daughter’s primary school.

   2025 May 15, “Europe’s free-speech problem”, in The Economist

8. figurativelytransitiveTo bind in conversation.

   I managed to collar Fred in the office for an hour.

   1 more example

   They go in and lobby, collar the representatives and ask: are you for or against?

   1981 December 19, Nancy Wechsler, Christine Delphy, “Politics In France”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 22, page 8

9. transitiveTo roll up (beef or other meat) and bind it with string preparatory to cooking.
10. transitiveBDSMTo bind (a submissive) to a dominant under specific conditions or obligations.

plural Collars

1. A surname.