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 D.


animal group or collective term notes
 
deer bunch  
herd standard
mob  
rangale  
 
dogs kennel the place where they live, and hence the inhabitants
pack standard
 
dogfish troop  
 
dolphins flock possibly invented
school standard
team  
 
dotterel trip  
 
doves dole or dule fanciful
flight  
piteousness fanciful
 
dragonet fish swarm possibly invented
 
ducks bunch (on water)  
paddling (on water) possibly fanciful
raft (on water) also used of other waterfowl
skein in flight
sord or sore  
string in flight
team (in flight)  
waddling possibly fanciful
 
dunbirds flight  
rush  
 
dunlins fling  
 

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