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 B.


animal group or collective term notes
baboons flange
troop
badgers cete
colony
set or sett the badger's den or burrow; not a group term
barbels shoal cited from Holme 1688
barracuda battery possibly invented
bass fleet possibly invented
bats cloud
colony
bears sleuth or sloth also spelt sleuthe, slewthe, slought, slowth
beavers colony
bees, wild bike or byke
bees cast `an afterswarm' (i.e. a second swarm)
cluster specifically, of workers around the queen
colony
drift when swarming
erst
fry term for young bees; not a group term
game
grist
hive strictly, the hive itself, and hence the inhabitants
rabble
stand
swarm standard
birds dissimulation fanciful
fleet
flight
flock standard
parcel
pod
volary (in an aviary)
bison herd
bitterns flock not specific
sege or siege
blackfish grind
bloodhounds sute
boars herd
singular
boars, wild sounder applies to twelve or more
bucks herd
buffalo gang
herd standard
obstinacy fanciful
bullfinches bellowing
bullocks drove when driven in a group
bustards flock
butterflies flight
rabble
butterfly fish school not specific



Collective Terms Index




HOME PAGE