from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Collocation \Col`lo*ca"tion\, n. [L. collocatio.]
1. The act of placing; the state of being placed with
something else; disposition in place; arrangement.
[1913 Webster]
The choice and collocation of words. --Sir W.
Jones.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Linguistics) a combination of related words within a
sentence that occurs more frequently than would be
predicted in a random arrangement of words; a combination
of words that occurs with sufficient frequency to be
recongizable as a common combination, especially a pair of
words that occur adjacent to each other. Also called
{stable collocation}. Combinations of words having
intervening words between them, such as verb and object
pairs, may also be collocations.
[PJC]