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 C.


animal group or collective term notes
 
camels flock  
herd  
caravan with merchandise
train as a column
 
capercailzes tok  
 
capons mews  
 
caribou herd  
 
cats clowder  
cluster or clutter  
glaring  
 
cats, wild destruction  
dowt or dout also (perhaps erroneously) `dour'
 
caterpillars army  
 
cattle drift when driven in a group
drove when driven in a group
herd  
mob  
 
chamois herd  
 
chickens brood standard
cletch or clutch  
peep possibly fanciful
 
chinchilla colony  
 
choughs chattering  
clattering  
 
clams bed strictly, a place where they grow together
 
cockles bed strictly, a place where they grow together
 
colts rack, rag, or rake  
 
conies bury or bery  
game  
 
coots covert  
flock  
pod  
rasp  
shoal swimming
 
cormorants flight  
 
coyotes pack  
 
cranes herd  
siege or sedge  
 
crocodiles bask  
nest  
 
crows hover perhaps properly used of rooks
murder  
parcel  
 
cubs litter standard
 
curlew herd  
 



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