collective

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Assembled into or viewed as a whole.
2. adj. Of, relating to, characteristic of, or made by a number of people acting as a group: a collective decision.
3. n. An undertaking, such as a business operation, set up on the principles or system of collectivism.
4. n. Grammar A collective noun.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Belonging to, vested in, or exercised by a number of individuals jointly, or considered as forming one body; united; aggregated: opposed to individual and distributive: as, collective actions.
2. In grammar, denoting an aggregate, group, or assemblage; expressing under the singular form a whole consisting of a plurality of individual objects or persons: as, a collective noun.
3. Deducing consequences; reasoning; inferring.
4. Having the quality or power of collecting together; tending to collect; forming a collection.
5. Relating to or of the nature of collectivism; belonging to the people as a whole.
6. n. In grammar, a noun in the singular number signifying an aggregate or assemblage, as multitude, crowd, troop, herd, people, society, Clergy, meeting, etc. Collectives as subjects can have their verbs either in the singular or in the plural, the latter by preference in familiar style; but usage varies as to different words of this class, according as they express more prominently a unity or a complexity; they take attributives, however, in the singular: as, the jury meets or meet, but this jury meets.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Formed by gathering or collecting; gathered into a mass, sum, or body; congregated or aggregated; as, the collective body of a nation.
2. adj. obsolete : Deducing consequences; reasoning; inferring.
3. adj. grammar : Expressing a collection or aggregate of individuals, by a singular form; as, a collective name or noun, like assembly, army, jury, etc.
4. adj. Tending to collect; forming a collection.
5. adj. Having plurality of origin or authority; as, in diplomacy, a note signed by the representatives of several governments is called a collective note.
6. n. A farm owned by a collection of people.
7. n. grammar A collective noun or name.
8. n. by extension A group dedicated to a particular cause or interest.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Formed by gathering or collecting; gathered into a mass, sum, or body; congregated or aggregated.
2. adj. obsolete Deducing consequences; reasoning; inferring.
3. adj. (Gram.) Expressing a collection or aggregate of individuals, by a singular form
4. adj. Tending to collect; forming a collection.
5. adj. Having plurality of origin or authority.
6. n. (Gram.) A collective noun or name.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. done by or characteristic of individuals acting together
2. adj. set up on the principle of collectivism or ownership and production by the workers involved usually under the supervision of a government
3. n. members of a cooperative enterprise
4. adj. forming a whole or aggregate