COLLECTIVE NOUNS
Collective nouns are nouns that refer to things or people as a unit.
Examples: family, police, class, team, crew etc.
Collective nouns can be used in both the singular form and the plural form.
Rules for Using Collective Nouns:
Singular Collective Noun Plural Collective Nouns
1. Singular collective nouns 1. Plural collective nouns refer to
refer to one unit of people or two or more units of people or
things. things.
2. Singular collective nouns are 2. Plural collective nouns are
used like singular nouns. used like plural nouns.
A collective noun is a noun that is singular in form but refers to a group of
people or things.
Sometimes they refer to a group of specific things:-
For example:-
Tables, chairs, cupboards etc. are grouped under the collective noun
furniture.
Plates, saucers, cups and bowls are grouped under the collective noun
crockery.
These collective nouns are often uncountable.
Sometimes they are more general:-
For example:-
Groups of people - army, audience, band, choir, class, committee, crew,
family, gang, jury, orchestra, police, staff, team, trio
Groups of animals - colony, flock, herd, pack, pod, school, swarm
Groups of things - bunch, bundle, clump, pair, set, stack
When such a group is considered as a single unit, the collective noun is
used with a singular verb and singular pronouns.
For example - The committee has reached its decision.
But when the focus is on the individual members of the group, British
English uses a plural verb and plural pronouns.
For example - "The committee have been arguing all morning." This is the
same as saying "The people in the committe have been ...."
A determiner in front of a singular collective noun is always singular: this
committee, never these committee (but of course when the collective noun
is pluralized, it takes a plural determiner: these committees
1. A faculty of academics.
2. A bevy of ladies
3. An eloquence of lawyers
4. A colony of leapers
5. An audience of listeners
6. A troupe of artists.
7. A bench of magistrates
8. A team of athletes
9. An orchestra of magicians
10. A crowd of people/audience/congregation/mob
11. A babble of barbers.
12. A faith of merchants.
13. A congregation of churchgoers.
14. A school of clerks
15. A converting of preachers
16. A cutting of cobblers
17. A pity of prisoners (gang)
18. A band of robbers.
19. A crew of sailors.
20. A troupe of dancers.
Invertebrates
(alternatives in brackets)
A culture of bacteria A clew of worms
A stuck of jellyfish (fluther, smack, smuth)
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Insects and Arachnids
(alternatives in brackets)
A colony of ants (army, bike, swarm) A bike of hornets (nest, swarm)
A swarm of bees (bike, cast, cluster, drift, erst, game, A flight of insects (horde, plague,
grist, hive, rabble, stand) rabble, swarm)
A bike of (wild) bees A flock of lice (colony, infestation)
A flight of butterflies (kaleidoscope, rabble, swarm) A plague of locusts (cloud, swarm)
An army of caterpillars A scourge of mosquitoes (swarm)
An intrusion of cockroaches A clutter of spiders (cluster)
A swarm of flies (business, cloud, grist, hatch) A colony of termites (swarm)
A cloud of gnats (horde, rabble, swarm) A colony of wasps (bike, nest)
A cloud of grasshoppers (cluster, swarm)
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Molluscs
A bed of clams A bed of oysters (hive)
A bed of cockles An escargatoire of snails (rout, walk)
A bed of mussels
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Fish
(alternatives in brackets)
A company of angel fish A pack of perch
A company of archer fish A shoal of pilchards (school)
A battery of barracudas A cluster of porcupine fish
A shoal of barbels A party of rainbow fish
A fleet of bass (shoal) A shoal of roach
A grind of blackfish A bind of salmons(draught, leap, run, school,
A school of butterfly fish shoal)
A school of cod A family of sardines
A swarm of dragonet fish A herd of seahorses
A troop of dogfish A shoal of shads
A swarm of eels A shiver of sharks (school, shoal)
A shoal of fish (catch, draught, fray, haul, run, A troupe of shrimps
school) A quantity of smelts
A glide of flying fish A shoal of sticklebacks (spread)
A glint of goldfish (troubling) A flotilla of swordfish
A glean of herrings (army, shoal) A hover of trouts (shoal)
A shoal of mackerels A float of tunas (troup)
A shoal of minnows (steam, stream, swarm) A pod of whitings
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Amphibians and Reptiles
(alternatives in brackets)
A quiver of cobras A rhumba of rattlesnakes
A bask of crocodiles (congregation, float, nest) A den of snakes (bed, knot, nest, pit, trogle)
A herd of dinosaurs (pack) A knot of toads (knob, nest)
A flight of dragons (weyr, wing) A bale of turtles (dule, turn)
An army of frogs (colony, froggery, knot) A nest of vipers (generation)
A mess of iguanas
