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]