Collective Nouns for Animals

Podcast Transcript

The English language is weird.

We have words that are spelled the same but sound different. We have words that are spelled differently but sound the same.

We have words that sound nothing like how they are spelled, and a host of exceptions that you just have to know and remember.

…and then for some reason, we have totally different arbitrary words for different groups of animals. In fact, we have a lot of those words.

Learn more about the words we have for groups of animals and why they exist on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

I’m sure that many of you have realized that the English language has a lot of different words for groups of animals. In fact, each animal seems to have its own word for a group of them.

Some of these you might be familiar with, but there is a good chance that you probably haven’t heard even a fraction of the collective nouns that are associated with different species of animals.

The ones you are probably familiar with include:

A pride of lions
A pack of wolves
A gaggle of geese
A pod of whales
A murder of crows
A brood of chickens
…and the name that was popular in the 1980s, a flock of seagulls.

However, this is barely scratching the surface of the words that exist. Birds have an enormous number of words, when you’d think that just “flock” would suffice.

Here is a partial list of collective nouns for birds:

A convocation of eagles
A bellowing of bullfinches
A siege of bitterns
A sedge of cranes
A herd of curlews
A gaggle of geese is only if they are on land
A skein of geese if they are in flight
A spring of teal
A paddling of ducks if they are on water
A bunch of ducks if they are in flight
A plump of wildfowl
A bevy of quail
An exaltation of larks
A watch of nightingales
A nye of pheasants
A covey of partridge
A dole of doves
A pitying of turtledoves
A murmuration of starlings
An ostentation of peacocks
A parliament of owls
A deceit of lapwings
A fall of woodcocks
A host of sparrows
A charm of goldfinches
A congregation of plovers
A flight of swallows
A building of rooks
A conspiracy of ravens
A cast of hawks
A rafter of turkeys

There are more, but this is a daily podcast with time limits. More importantly, I want to get to other types of animals.

Mammals have a host of collective nouns as well. These include:

A leap of leopards
A sleuth of bears
A sounder of swine
A crash of rhinoceroses
A singular of boars
A trip of hares
A drove of cattle
A mob of kangaroos
A shrewdness of apes
A labor of moles
A skulk of foxes
An embarrassment of pandas
A cete of badgers
A clowder of cats
A kindle of kittens
A destruction of wild cats
A pace of asses (donkeys)
A business of ferrets
A horde of gerbils
A tower of giraffes
A gaze of raccoons
A raft of otters
A barrel of monkeys

So there are tons of words for groups of birds and mammals. What about other types of animals?

There aren’t nearly as many for reptiles or amphibians.

A knot of toads
A nest of vipers
A pit of snakes
A chorus of frogs
A bale of turtles
A creep of tortoises

Fish also don’t have as many collective nouns. In addition to the generic “school” of fish, there are:

A hover of trout
A shoal of bass
A shoal of herrings
A run of salmon
A swarm of eels
A draught of fish, if they are caught in a net

Lest you think this episode is going to be nothing more than a long list of words, let me do one last one with insects and arachnids.

A bike of bees
A colony of ants
A cloud of grasshoppers
A plague of locusts
A scourge of mosquitoes
A flutter of butterflies
A rabble of gnats
A scourge of flies
A cluster of spiders

The list of words that I just provided is far from exhaustive, and to make things even worse, many of the words used for particular animals are not unique.

There are often multiple words that are used to describe a group of animals.

For example, in addition to an ostentation of peacocks, it is sometimes called a pride of peacocks or a muster of peacocks.

Peacocks aren’t the only animals. Horses can be in a herd, but they are also called a stud, a team, a harass, or a string.

There are many, many more examples, and perhaps you’ve heard of alternate words to describe some of the animals I’ve just listed.

So, why do we do this? Why don’t we just use a small number of words to describe animal groups more generally? Certainly, herd, school, flock, and swarm might cover most of the cases we can think of.

Other languages don’t have this many words to describe groups of animals.

Well, it turns out that there is a reason for the madness. It isn’t necessarily a good reason, but it is a reason. It also explains why there are more words for groups of birds and mammals than for reptiles and fish.

It goes back to 15th-century England.

During this period, English aristocratic culture was heavily influenced by hunting. This is why there are more words for mammals and birds than there are for reptiles and insects. It all had to do with hunting.

Hunting was usually forbidden to lower-class people. They were allowed to hunt small game like rabbits and hares, but it was illegal for them to hunt larger, more desirable game such as deer. These animals were considered the property of the king, and killing them would make you guilty of poaching.

Hunting became a highly ritualized social activity among the nobility and educated classes. Going on a hunt would be an event and often involved dozens of people who came along in a support role.

One of the things that elites do in every society is adopt language that separates them from the common rabble. Consider how, in My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle initially struggled to fit into upper-class society due to her speech.

The use of elite language and hunting as an aristocratic activity were jointly responsible for the development of so many words to describe groups of animals.

These collective terms served as a kind of verbal badge of sophistication. Knowing that a group of lions was called a “pride” or that crows gathered in a “murder” demonstrated your education and social standing.

There’s also was a practical element. Different human activities, such as farming, hunting, and science, created different needs for precision in animal terminology. Farmers needed to distinguish between different grouping behaviors of livestock for practical management reasons. Hunters required terminology that reflected the strategic challenges of pursuing different species.

Our knowledge of most of these words has been passed down to us from a single 15th-century book: The Book of Saint Albans, published in 1486.

The book was one of the earliest books ever published on a printing press in England.

The Book of Saint Albans was a compendium on the pursuits expected of gentlemen, such as hawking, hunting, and heraldry. It was produced at the St Albans press by the anonymous author called “Schoolmaster Printer.”

It traditionally has been attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, a prioress linked with Sopwell Nunnery, but it was most probably a compilation from earlier French and English works.

It was written to instruct the aristocracy in the “proper” knowledge of noble pastimes, both as a practical manual and as a display of refinement. The hunting section included the famous long list of collective nouns for animals and people, partly serious and partly witty social wordplay.

The original term used for the words was “terms of venery.” Venery is an archaic word that referred to hunting.

The book quickly became popular and was reprinted in 1496 with an added section on angling. Its fame endured because of the striking heraldic illustrations and the entertaining lists of “terms of venery,” many of which entered the English language as curiosities.

So, most of the crazy words we have for groups of animals can actually be traced back to this single book published in 1486.

….but wait, there’s more.

Most of these words fell into disuse just a few decades after the book was published. For several centuries, there was little to no mention of most of the collective animal nouns in literature.

Then, in the 19th century, for reasons we aren’t totally sure, there was a resurgence in these collective animal nouns. Some of them, like a pride of lions or a murder of crows, stuck and remained part of the popular English vocabulary.

The vast majority of them, however, remain obscure.

There is something else that I haven’t mentioned, and maybe some of you have thought of.

It was after this resurgence that many words were developed for animals that people in medieval England wouldn’t have been aware of. They had no clue what kangaroos, pandas, or raccoons were.

All of the collective nouns for animals that are found in the New World were developed independently from the 19th century onward.

There is one type of animal that I haven’t mentioned, that the Book of Saint Albans also has words for: humans.

The book provides collective nouns for various types of people who were important to medieval society. These include:

A state of princes
A draught of butlers
A drunkenness of cobblers
An eloquence of lawyers
A superfluity of nuns
A poverty of pipers
An untruth of summoners (these were people who summoned people to church courts)
A disguising of tailors
An observance of friars
A sentence of judges
A lying of pardoners
A doctrine of doctors
An abominable sight of monks
A blast of hunters
A diligence of messengers

At this point, I started thinking…..

If the medieval world had words to describe its society, perhaps we need similar terms to describe the 21st century.

…and if a single book, likely written by a single author, can create so many words, why can’t someone just do that today….and why can’t that someone be me?

So, ladies and gentlemen, I humbly present to you some new collective nouns for people of the 21st century.

A lag of network administrators
A download of podcasters
A couch of gamers
An annoyance of influencers
A binge of Netflix viewers
An eyeroll of smartphone users
A cringe of reality stars
A hustle of entrepreneurs
A lemon of car salespeople
A bug of programmers
A facepalm of flatearthers
An empty suit of politicians
A thread of commenters
A complaint of online reviewers

And finally….

A curiosity of Everything Everywhere Daily listeners

Feel free to use any of them and to spread them far and wide.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s 1-star review comes from former listener StardustBabe on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write:

Al is Destructive

I am very disappointed to see the picture for this episode was generated by artificial unintelligence. Which makes me worried that whoever writes it is also using slop to research and write. Honestly, if you, the person/s who make this podcast, and you the listeners, are into learning and discovery, you should already know how extremely destructive and unethical A so-called I is. It is destroying the Earth, it is exploiting humans, and it is destroying the process of human knowledge and learning. Because of the use of Al, I am now, sadly, unfollowing this podcast and will not recommend it to anyone.

Well, StardustBabe, assuming you are still listening.

This is an audio podcast. The core of what I do is the creation of an audio program that people will listen to, that will hopefully inform and entertain.

The cover art that I put on every episode is nothing more than a garnish. It is the podcasting equivalent of parsley. It isn’t the focus of what I do. I want to spend as little time, money, and effort on creating show artwork, yet still have it be someone relevant to the topic at hand.

Many times, I’ll use stock photography from Adobe as I have an account there. If possible, I’ll sometimes use my own photography.

AI images enable me to quickly, cheaply, and legally obtain images for the episode, allowing me to focus on producing and recording the podcast. I’ve talked about this several times on both the Facebook group and the Discord server.

If you think that using an AI-generated image on a podcast is going to lead to the destruction of the Earth, you are free to do so.

Personally, I use it as a tool to allow me to work more efficiently.

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