confero

Confero, conferre, contuli, collatum. A compound of fero, so the principal parts jump stems twice and there is nothing for it but to learn them; contuli and collatum look like a different verb because historically they are.

Three habits. With cum it means compare, and the imperative confer, abbreviated to cf. in an English footnote, is still giving you that instruction. With in or a dative it means bestow, which is where conferring a degree and a collation of texts both come from. And se conferre is simply to take oneself off somewhere. Signa conferre, "to bring the standards together", is the idiom for engaging the enemy. The noun collatio ends up meaning a comparison, a tax levy, and in a monastery the evening reading with the light meal that followed it - which is how collation became a snack.