It’s that time again.
Another Wednesday so another quick look through the dictionary to find some more words all bound by a common theme.
Today we begin a two-part look at collective nouns.
A collective noun is a word which describes any given group of objects.
It does not matter what the group of things actually is and collective nouns can apply to people, animals, emotions, concepts etc.
So when we talk about, for example, a flock of sheep, the word “flock” is the collective noun.
Here are another 25 collective nouns, all of which refer to either animals or birds. It is possible for more than one collective noun to apply to the same group of objects.
For example both cats and owls have two sets of collective nouns in the words chosen below:
polar bears
an ambush of tigers
an aurora of polar bears
a barren of mules
a bask of crocodiles
a bellowing of bullfinches
a bloat of hippopotamus
a building of rooks
a bury of rabbits
a busyness of ferrets
a cackle of hyenas
cats
a clew of worms
a clowder of cats
a glaring of cats
a knot of toads
a labour of moles
a leap of leopards
a mischief of mice
a murder of crows
a murmuration of starlings
an obstinacy of buffalo
an ostentation of peacocks
a pandemonium of parrots
a parliament of owls
a stare of owls
a piteousness of doves
* All words in this blog post have been supplied by The 12th edition of The Chambers Dictionary. ISBN 97805501002379
Twitter: hldame3
I just feel smarter reading this post Thanks for the info Patrick
Twitter: chattopatrick
Ha thanks…but you are pretty smart to begin with
By the way it was great meeting you and your family yesterday. Thanks for such a great welcome.
P.
Patrick Griffin thinks you may like this post too..Introducing Some Changes Around Here
Twitter: clutchtool
a covey of quail.
Twitter: chattopatrick
Yes John that is correct. I have also seen a drift of quail and a bevy of quail used also although when I worked for a Tabloid newspaper in the 1980s the word “bevy” was nearly always used in a different sense.
Downmarket papers would often talk about “a bevy of buxom beauties” although I am not sure that such a sexist phrase would be used so widely nowadays.
P.
Patrick Griffin thinks you may like this post too..Introducing Some Changes Around Here
Twitter: clutchtool
Are any of those old tabloid articles still available?
You should share them with us someday.
As for the phrase “a bevy of buxom beauties” being sexist, actually it sounds quite classy over many of todays phrases ( of course you british types have always had a flare for insulting someone while making it sound classy : ). Today if one were to substitute “beauties” with another well used “b word” one would have a good beginning to a potentially popular rap song.
From the intelligence i have witnessed from some of our celebrity “buxom beauties” they would have to look up the meaning of bevy and buxom, but i doubt they would care enough to even put forth the effort.
JPB
Twitter: chattopatrick
Ha ha. I have many of those old articles I wrote way back then somewhere…maybe I will dig them out at some stage and give you all a laugh.
I am actually quite horrified to recall just some of the stuff I wrote.
P.
Patrick Griffin thinks you may like this post too..Friday Newsletter: November 11, 2011.
Twitter: SamAggieland
Well Patrick, I just spent an hour googling the words and will just leave all the two syllable words for you! Kidding ya, interesting as always!
Sam
Sam Burgess thinks you may like this post too..Tony and Sabrina Burgess, A Marriage Made in Heaven!
Twitter: chattopatrick
I like the Wednesday words feature but I won’t pretend to know what all the words mean because many of them I am discovering for the first time.
Then again we never stop learning.
Patrick Griffin thinks you may like this post too..Monday Moaning: When Will We Rid The Industry Of Workshy Marketers?
Comments on this entry are closed.