What do you call of group of __________? The answer is what’s called a Collective Noun. It’s when a group of things has a specific name. Examples are a School of Fish, a Flock of Birds, or a Herd of Cows—the picture up top…that’s a Parliament of Owls. But often there are much more specific terms—a Murder of Crows is one a lot of people know, though I’m more partial to an Unkindness of Ravens. The English language has many…many…very specific terms for groups of things—not just animals.
Most of these terms aren’t scientific in origin. Largely they were invented by writers, poets, or field scientists talking amongst themselves, and they became accepted later as official terms. And several of the animals have multiple terms for different circumstances—a mother cat has a Litter of Kittens, but a group of kittens not all from the same litter is a Kindle—when they grow up into cats, they are a Clowder.
I don’t remember when I became enamored with the eccentric terms that have cropped up, but for many years I’ve been collecting them and organizing them into my own personal reference list.
The list is too long to display on a blog page, so I’ve included the list, below, as a download. It’s available as an Excel document, or a PDF.
Where Is My Spot? 