Collaborate - corroborate

To corroborate and to collaborate are both verbs, but they have very different meanings.

• To corroborate comes from the Latin verb roborare, which means 'to strengthen'. To corroborate is to strengthen, e.g., a statement or claim by providing facts or evidence in support of it. So we might say that several witnesses have corroborated the driver's claim that he was driving slowly at the time of the accident.

There are several related words. The adjective corroborative means 'supporting or strengthening a claim', as in "Before we accept the driver's statement we must find some corroborative evidence". The noun corroboration means 'the strengthening or support of a claim', as in "The driver's claim needs corroboration".

• To collaborate comes from the Latin verb laborare, which means 'to work'. To collaborate is to work together or to work with one or more other people on a joint project. The verb takes a number of different constructions. It is possible to say that Smith collaborated with Jones in writing a history of Hull, or that Smith collaborated with Jones to write a history of Hull or that Smith and Jones collaborated in writing a history of Hull, or that Smith and Jones collaborated to write a history of Hull.

There are several related words. There is the adjective collaborative: a collaborative enterprise is one in which two or more people are collaborating or have collaborated. A collaborator is a person who is collaborating in a joint enterprise: e.g., "John had the help of a number of collaborators".

• To collaborate is also sometimes used in a more specific and unfavourable sense to mean 'to work with the enemy who have occupied one's country'. So we may say that in World War II the authorities in Paris collaborated with the occupying Nazi forces. Related to this is the use of the noun collaborator to mean a person who works with the enemy, i.e., a traitor.