Collective Terms for Animals

This section is a pretty comprehensive list of Collective Terms for Animals. Many will be familiar but others will be unheard of, deriving from 15th century witticisms or literary imagination, and some are simply archaic or erroneous. There are also some terms for pairs of animals and groups of three animals.


The list has been arranged alphabetically.


Here is the list of Terms for Animals beginning with A.


animal group or collective term notes
albatross rookery strictly, a breeding-place, not a group term
angel fish host possibly invented (after `a host of angels)
ants army
bike
colony
swarm
antelope cluster
herd standard
tribe
apes shrewdness fanciful
troop standard
archer fish company possibly invented (after `a company of archers')
asses coffle probably a term for a roped line
drove properly, when driven in a group
herd standard
pace or passe
auks colony on land
flock at sea
raft on water: used of other waterfowl
avocets colony

Collective Terms Index

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