A collective noun, for those who don’t know, refers to a collective name of things taken as a whole, and it originates from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages.
I.e. – a group of dogs is called a pack of dogs.
According to Wikipedia, “The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. It was marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. The elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, the tendency had reached exaggerated proportions”
In today’s culture, we know of a handful of popular collective nouns. If we search for posts on collective nouns for African Animals we come up with a few dozen blog posts with a mix and match of various terms. For quite a few of the popular ones, there is more than one collective noun and for many animals, there seems to be no collective noun whatsoever.
While doing a bit of research for a sideline project, I decided to put together a comprehensive list for African Animals… And a few suggestions for groups I can’t find collective nouns for:
A
An armoury of aardvark
An armoury of aardvark
B
A troop of baboons
A cete of badger
A cloud of bats
A swarm of bees
An obstinacy of buffalo
A congress of bushbabies
A flutter of butterflies
C
A horrible of centipedes
A camouflage of chameleons
A coalition of cheetah
A quiver of cobras
An intrusion cockroaches
A gulp of cormorants
A cast of crabs
(A pinch of crabs sounds better)
A siege of cranes
An orchestra of crickets
A bask of crocodiles
A murder of crows
A commotion of coots
D
A colony of dassie
A pod of dolphin
A bevy of doves
A cluster dragonflies
(I think a hover of dragonflies would be better)
A dollop of dung beetles
E
A convocation of eagles
A memory of elephant
F
A flamboyance of flamingos
A swatting of flycatchers
A bouquet of francolin
An army of frogs
G
A gaggle of geese
A tower of giraffe
A whoop of gorillas
A cloud of grasshoppers
A confusion of guinea fowl
H
A down of hares
A prickle of hedgehogs
A hedge or siege of herons
A bloat of hippos
A cackle of hyena
I
A rank / herd of impala
J
A skulk of jackal
A smack of jellyfish
K
A clique of kingfishers
L
A loveliness of ladybirds
A leap of leopards
A pride of lion
A lounge of lizards
A plague of locusts
M
A funeral of marabou storks
A mob of meerkat
(I prefer: a periscope of meerkat)
A disestablishment of millipedes
A business of mongoose
A labour of moles
A barrel of monkeys
A scourge of mosquito
A statutory of mynas
A funeral of marabou storks
A mob of meerkat
(I prefer: a periscope of meerkat)
A disestablishment of millipedes
A business of mongoose
A labour of moles
A barrel of monkeys
A scourge of mosquito
A statutory of mynas
N
An invisibility of nightjars
O
A pride of ostriches
(I prefer; A sway of ostriches)
A romp of otters
A parliament of owls
A fling of oxpeckers
P
A protection of pangolin
A formality of penguins
A scoop of pelicans
A prickle of porcupine
A band of plovers
R
A worm of robins
A crash of rhino
S
A nest of scorpions
A squabble of seagulls
A shiver of sharks
A whisker of shrews
An abattoir of shrikes
A mess of slug-eaters
A cluster of spiders
A herd of springbok
(I much prefer; A champion of Springbok)
A slither of snakes
An escargatoire of snails
A chattering of starlings
A bushel of stick insects
A mustering of storks
A scurry of squirrel
A gulp of swallows
A box of swifts
T
A brood of termites
A colony of ticks
A creep of tortoises
A knot of toads
A dule of turtles
A mutation of thrush
V
A wake of vultures
(also a kettle, committee, venue or vault)
W
A nest of wasps
A sounders of warthog
A pod of whales
A confusion of wildebeest
(or an implausibility of gnus)
A pack of wild dog (yawn, boring)
(A whoop of wild dogs sounds vastly better)
A descent of woodpeckers
A wriggle of worms
Z
A dazzle of zebra
And a few more fun ones that I couldnt seem to find any online reference for – so I made up my own.
A drain of aphids
A slurp of barbel
A blaze of blesbok
An irritant of blue bottle flies
A congregation of bishops
A deluge of bullfrogs
A robbery of coucal
A parasite of cuckoos
A ménage of dikkop
A ball of dung beetles
A cleansing of egrets
A disproportion of eland
An adherence of geckos
A javelin of gemsbok
A racket of hadeda
A welt of horseflies
A shadow of kudu
A voetsak of louries
A reverence of mantids
A thrash of monitor lizards
A powder of moths
A harass of plovers
A meep of rain frogs
A thud of rhinoceros beetles
A scuttle of rose beetles
A nobility of sable
A revere of sacred ibis
A champion of sprinkbok
A pong of stinkbugs
A glittering of sunbirds
A stink of terrapins
A lesion of tsetse flies
A knock of tok-tokkies
A thread of weavers
A vigilance of white eyes
A whistle of white faced ducks
A cackling of woodhoepoe
A scurry of woodlice
If you know of any that I’m missing, or have any suggestions for some cool new ones, leave a comment below.
1 Comment. Leave new
Love the newly created ones!