Collective | Vocabulary | Khan Academy

It's time to come together, wordsmiths! The word we'll go through in this video is "collective."

Collective is an adjective; it means something done together by everyone in a group. Like, we made a collective decision that slugs should be our mascot. We did it together, right? This word comes from Latin roots. The "co-" part means with or together, like cohabitate, to live together, or cooperate, to work together. You might also see it as "con" or "comm." The "le" part comes from "leg," which is Latin for to pick or to gather. It's also Latin for to read, but that's another story.

So, gathered together, that's what it means to collect something, right? Collect means gathered together. And this last part, "-ive," if that's what makes it an adjective, a describing word. It means tending to. So therefore, something that's collective tends to stick together, right? Gathers things together, does things as a group.

So, using these three elements, what other similar words can you come up with? "Co-" or "con," "le," or "-ive." I'll put on some music; meet me back here in 10 seconds.

[Music]

Okay, here's what I came up with: using "con," I have "conduct," to guide, like a train conductor or an orchestra conductor. "Con" together, "duct" to lead. You're leading an orchestra together; you're keeping everyone on the train together. Using "le," I got "elect," right? To vote for someone, to pick them. Using "-ive," I got "impressive," an adjective that describes something as worthy or memorable, something that might impress us.

Right, let's use "collective" in a sentence: because its members loved arguing, the Debate Club struggled to make collective decisions. Right? They couldn't even decide what to order for dinner as a group with the take-out menu in the center.

You can also use "collective" as a noun, although that's a little bit less common. It's another way to say group. Think of like a farmers' collective or a yarn collective, right? It's a group of people that have come together to accomplish something together.

We, fly wordsmiths—what we do, we do collectively and together. I think we can learn anything.

David out.