Collective Nouns – Practical and Whimsical

What do you call a group of whales? Is it a pod, a herd, a school, a gam or a plump?

Collective nouns are words for a group of people, animals or things. Some are familiar and we use them regularly. They’re practical and useful. Family, team, and bunch are a few examples.

Some collective nouns are rarely used and mostly for the amusement of word enthusiasts. Word games and puzzles are where you’ll usually find a clowder of cats, a piddle of puppies and a glory of unicorns.

You can find a list of collective nouns in alphabetical order in the Wiktionary Glossary of collective nouns by collective term.

Verbs for Collective Nouns

When the subject of a sentence is singular, the verb is singular. When the subject of a sentence is plural, the verb is plural.

With collective nouns, it can be tricky. Some collective nouns are always singular and some are always plural. But, sometimes a singular collective noun expresses a plural idea and needs a plural verb. This can happen when all the members of a collective noun are acting as individuals and the group is not acting as a unit.