COLLATION is also popularly used for a repast between meals, particularly between dinner and supper. The word collation, in this sense, Du Cange derives from collocutio, "conference," and maintains, that originally collation was only a conference, or conversation on subjects of piety, held on fast days in monasteries; but that, by degrees, the custom was introduced of bringing in a few refreshments; and that by the excesses to which those sober repasts were at length carried, the name of the abuse was retained, but that of the thing lost.