collateral.

1. Accompanying an event as a secondary or indirect effect.

2. Property or another asset pledged to secure repayment of a loan or performance of an obligation.

3. Related through a common ancestor but not in the direct line between ancestor and descendant.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• collateral effect
• collateral damage

On the page

The assessment counted collateral effects on small suppliers, not only the direct cost to the agency.

Describing the harm as collateral did not make it morally negligible.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Relational adjective; ordinary comparative and superlative generally not applicable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, comparison, evaluation. Disciplines: academic writing, institutional studies. Commonness: moderately common.