compilation

Everyday

1. A collection of things, such as songs, videos, facts or stories, put together in one album, book or list: «a compilation of funny animal clips». tree →
2. The act of collecting and arranging such things: «The compilation of the dictionary took years». tree →
3. (computing) The process in which a program called a compiler turns code written by people into code the computer runs. tree →

In the lessons

In everyday life there are compilation albums («Now That's What I Call Music»), compilation videos and «best of» collections. In school, a class might make a compilation of poems or recipes. In computing lessons with languages like Rust or C, the code must go through compilation before it can run. Phrases: «a compilation album», «a compilation video», «a compilation of», «compilation error».

Examples

• Dad bought a compilation of the greatest songs of the 1980s. tree →
• We watched a compilation of the funniest football fails. tree →
• Our class made a compilation of favourite family recipes. tree →
• The compilation of the report took the whole weekend. tree →
• The program would not run because of a compilation error. tree →
• This book is a compilation of fairy tales from around the world. tree →
• The yearbook is a compilation of photos from the whole school year. tree →
• The whole of this literature was summed up by Somadeva, c. 1200 A.D. in a huge compilation entitled Katha Sarit Sagara ("Ocean of the Stream of Stories"). tree →

Note

Comes from the verb «compile» (to collect and put together). Countable when it means a collection (two compilations), uncountable when it means the process. Said «kom-pi-LAY-shun». Do not confuse with «complication» (a difficulty).