noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An optical device that generates a parallel beam of light. Often used to compensate for laser beam divergence.
2. 2
   optical device consisting of a tube containing a convex achromatic lens at one end and a slit at the other with the slit at the focus of the lens; light rays leave the slit as a parallel beam wordnet
3. 3
   A similar device that produces a parallel beam of particles such as neutrons.
4. 4
   a small telescope attached to a large telescope to use in setting the line of the larger one wordnet
5. 5
   A small telescope attached to a larger one, used to point it in the correct general direction.

Etymology

From collimate + -or.

Related phrases

multileaf collimator

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.