Collections and Indexes

Look up Collection in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

In common usage, a collection is any group of items that has one or more properties in common, usually brought together for some specific purpose. See Collecting and Collectibles.

The term can also be used more specifically:

• In mathematics, collection is not precisely defined, but can refer to various objects. Most often it refers to a set, class, family, or multiset.
• In museums and art galleries, the collection of objects in a particular field forms the core basis for the museum.
• In music, specifically diatonic set theory, a collection is similar to a tone row; see generated collection.
• In a church the collection is the money collected from the congregation during a service. The congregation normally place their donation into a collection plate or bag which is passed around and returned to the priest.
• Collection (Oxford Colleges) – college examinations in the University of Oxford.

Look up Index in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Index can be defined as:

• an ordered list, plural indexes
• a number or variable, plural indices.

Index can also have the following meanings:

• The city -- Index, Washington, United States
• Publishing purposes; see index (publishing)
• Information technology (IT) purposes; see index (information technology) or index (database)
• The default page served by a web server, such as index.html or index.htm.
• Mathematics; see index (mathematics)
• Linguistics; see Indexicality
• Economics and finance; see index (economics)
• In Roman Catholicism the Index is the Index Librorum Prohibitorum created in 1559, the list of books that obedient Catholics were forbidden to read.
  • This meaning has been extended to book censorship by some political regimes.
• Index also refers to a style of playing the game stepmania by using index fingers on both hands to hit the arrows on the keyboard; see StepMania.
• Index fingers on our hands.
• The former UK catalogue retailer, Index, of the Littlewoods group, later known as Littlewoods Index.
• Index Magazine, based in New York City.