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Collective Terms for Animals
Collective Terms for Animals
This section is a pretty comprehensive list of Collective Terms for Animals. Many will be familiar but others will be unheard of, deriving from 15th century witticisms or literary imagination, and some are simply archaic or erroneous. There are also some terms for pairs of animals and groups of three animals.
The list has been arranged alphabetically.
Here is the list of Terms for Animals beginning with B.
| animal | group or collective term | notes |
| baboons | flange | |
| troop | ||
| badgers | cete | |
| colony | ||
| set or sett | the badger's den or burrow; not a group term | |
| barbels | shoal | cited from Holme 1688 |
| barracuda | battery | possibly invented |
| bass | fleet | possibly invented |
| bats | cloud | |
| colony | ||
| bears | sleuth or sloth | also spelt sleuthe, slewthe, slought, slowth |
| beavers | colony | |
| bees, wild | bike or byke | |
| bees | cast | `an afterswarm' (i.e. a second swarm) |
| cluster | specifically, of workers around the queen | |
| colony | ||
| drift | when swarming | |
| erst | ||
| fry | term for young bees; not a group term | |
| game | ||
| grist | ||
| hive | strictly, the hive itself, and hence the inhabitants | |
| rabble | ||
| stand | ||
| swarm | standard | |
| birds | dissimulation | fanciful |
| fleet | ||
| flight | ||
| flock | standard | |
| parcel | ||
| pod | ||
| volary (in an aviary) | ||
| bison | herd | |
| bitterns | flock | not specific |
| sege or siege | ||
| blackfish | grind | |
| bloodhounds | sute | |
| boars | herd | |
| singular | ||
| boars, wild | sounder | applies to twelve or more |
| bucks | herd | |
| buffalo | gang | |
| herd | standard | |
| obstinacy | fanciful | |
| bullfinches | bellowing | |
| bullocks | drove | when driven in a group |
| bustards | flock | |
| butterflies | flight | |
| rabble | ||
| butterfly fish | school | not specific |
