ĭon't trust this list many of these entries are fanciful and never found outside of word lists.Ī cast, company, condescension, cry, queue, stage, troupe of actorsĪ flight, squadron (aeroplanes), wing of aircraftĪ choir, chorus, flight, host, or pinhead of angelsĪn army, bike, colony, nest, soviet, swarm of antsĪ battery, park, rumble, troop of artilleryĪ congress, flange, rumpus, tribe, troop, troupe of baboonsĪ colony of bacteria (a culture if laboratory-grown)Ī maul, pack, sloth, or sleuth of bearsĪ bike, bike cast, byke, cast (secondary swarm), cluster, colony, commonwealth, erst, flight, drift, game, grist, hive, hum, rabble, stand, or swarm of beesĪ congregation, dissimulation (small birds), fleet, flight, flock, parcel, pod, roost, volary / volery (in an aviary) of birdsĪ colony of birds (roosting in large numbers)Ī cloud, flock, grind, merl of blackbirdsĪ drift (herded), herd, singular, singularity, sounder of boarsĪ chain of bobolinks (polygamous bird, Ricebird)Ī blush, boister, leer, passel or rascal of boysĪ flight, flutter, kaleidoscope, rabble, rainbow, school fish, swarm, or wing of butterfliesĪ caravan, flock, herd, scorn, train of camelsĪ tok of capercaillies (i.e. For quite a few of the popular ones, there is more than one collective noun and for many animals, there seems to be no collective noun whatsoever. Many of these are fanciful or humorous terms which have never had any real currency, but have been taken up by various antiquarian writers. If we search for posts on collective nouns for African Animals we come up with a few dozen blog posts with a mix and match of various terms. In the lists which follow, terms marked with a + belong to the 15th-century list of " proper terms" contained in the Book of St Albans. Here is a list of collective nouns by subject.Ī collective noun is a special kind of noun that refers to a collection of objects-often animals-such as a flock of birds, or a pride of lions. Please see the discussion on Requests for cleanup ( +) or the talk page for more information and remove this template after the problem has been dealt with. You might be curious about the collective nouns used for wild animals. You can also get a free 30-day free trial to the Macquarie Dictionary and Thesaurus.A user suggests that this English appendix be cleaned up, giving the reason: “citations need cleanup”. Some of these less common collective nouns include a parcel of hogs, a passel of pups, and a convocation of eagles. There are also some collective nouns for animals that are not as common as the ones listed above. We may not often use them, but it's still good to know animal group names. Other common collective nouns for animals include a drove of donkeys, a gaggle of geese, a litter of kittens, and a litter of puppies. 'Stench' for a group of skunks, for example. If there are any others we've missed, you can suggest a word or let us know. Animal group names date back to medieval times, when a list of collective terms for animals first appeared in 'The Book of Saint Albans,' printed in 1486. There's a unique collective noun for any group of animals. The list below includes many common standard English terms, such as a pod of whales and a pack of dogs, as well as more arcane terms such as a clowder of cats and a descension of woodpeckers. Actual evidence of these 'proper' terms in genuine use is either sketchy or non-existent. It may be noted that despite the existence of these collective nouns, ordinarily a group of plovers, starlings or owls will most likely be denoted, in both spoken and written English, by the term flock and not congregation, murmuration or parliament. In imitation of these medieval terms many new terms of a similar nature have been coined in recent times, such as a crash of rhinoceroses. Whether these terms were ever actually used by hunters is doubtful, but a few have in the end become a part of the standard English vocabulary, and scholars from the 19th century onwards have been diligent in reproducing these medieval lists, with greater and less accuracy, so that many of these terms are today still known as the 'proper' terms for a group of some stated animal or bird, even though their use outside this limited domain is virtually non-existent. A number of medieval sources provided lists of collective nouns for various animals and birds, purportedly as technical hunting terms, although clearly fanciful in origin. Below are some names for groups of birds, but you can find a detailed article with many other collective nouns for birds here.
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