Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A collection of literary pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays.
  • noun A miscellany, assortment, or catalog, as of complaints, comments, or ideas.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A collection of flowers; a garland.
  • noun A collection of poems, epigrams, and fugitive pieces by various authors.
  • noun In the Gr. Ch., a selection from several of the official service-books of such parts of the services as are most needed by the laity.
  • noun A treatise on flowers.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare A discourse on flowers.
  • noun rare A collection of flowers; a garland.
  • noun A collection of flowers of literature, that is, beautiful passages from authors; a collection of poems or epigrams; -- particularly applied to a collection of ancient Greek epigrams.
  • noun (Gr. Ch.) A service book containing a selection of pieces for the festival services.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A collection of literary works, such as poems or short stories.
  • noun by extension An assortment of things.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a collection of selected literary passages

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Greek anthologiā, collection of epigrams, from Greek, flower gathering, from anthologein, to gather flowers : antho-, antho- + logos, a gathering (from legein, to gather; see leg- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthologia, "flower-gathering"), from ἀνθολογέω (anthologeō, "I gather flowers"), from ἄνθος (anthos, "flower") + λέγω (legō, "I gather, pick up, collect"), coined by Meleager of Gadara circa 60 BCE, originally as Στέφανος (στέφανος ("garland")) to describe a collection of poetry, later retitled anthology – see Greek Anthology. Anthologiai were collections of small Greek poems and epigrams, because in Greek culture the flower symbolized the finer sentiments that only poetry can express.

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Examples

  • My contribution to the anthology is a Professor Challenger story called The Disintegration Machine (adapted by Rod Lott from the story by Arthur Conan Doyle).

    Cracking Toast, Kermit! Roger Langridge 2009

  • But there were some really good stories, too, and overall the anthology is a good one.

    REVIEW: Eclipse Two edited by Jonathan Strahan 2009

  • Maybe it's because the anthology is a nanotech werewolves in love anthology, so I have to come up with a nanotech werewolves in love story.

    Things to Know yuki_onna 2010

  • My contribution to the anthology is a Professor Challenger story called The Disintegration Machine (adapted by Rod Lott from the story by Arthur Conan Doyle).

    Archive 2009-05-01 Roger Langridge 2009

  • But there were some really good stories, too, and overall the anthology is a good one.

    February 2009 2009

  • Polyphony 4 makes it clear enough that a spirit of experimentation exists among those writers who have chosen to work within the uber-genre of science fiction/fantasy, much more so, if this anthology is at all representative, than among those who still aspire to the putative respectability of "literary fiction."

    Genre Fiction 2010

  • Taking a slightly different approach to the other X-Men anthologies, this anthology is all novellas.

    Superhero Prose Fiction: X-Men - Five Decades of the X-Men Blue Tyson 2007

  • Taking a slightly different approach to the other X-Men anthologies, this anthology is all novellas.

    Archive 2007-12-01 Blue Tyson 2007

  • Okay, so since the Bomber's Broadside went to bed (the project formerly known as the Yankee Annual), the fleamarkets are over, a pile of other deadlines have also been kicked, and the cowboy erotica anthology is almost done, I find myself for the past ten days in a state of actual depression.

    February 23rd, 2007 ceciliatan 2007

  • But the anthology is at its most charming when it is at its most quirky.

    Chairs, Rag Mags, Indian Wars 2006

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