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




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