![]() ![]() Lemurs are small, long-tailed primates that live in trees on the island of Madagascar. Bloat means “to become swollen with fluid or gas,” and hippopotamuses have barrel-shaped bodies that look, well, bloated. Hippopotamuses tend to live in a group, or bloat, of 10 to 30 animals led by one dominant male hippo. And, interestingly enough, the term lounge lizard, coined in the early 1900s, is slang for a well-dressed man who hangs out in bars, cafés, and hotel lounges with the aim to seduce wealthy women. Lizards tend to be territorial and use sit-and-wait hunting strategies. Perhaps, Berners observed some lizards lounging in the sun when she coined this one. The adjective flamboyance means “strikingly bold or showy,” and for these social birds that range in color from light pink to bright red, we think it’s properly descriptive. It also seems that Berners had a penchant for poetry and liked alliteration, based on this one. A flamboyance of flamingosĪ flamboyance of flamingos is a colorful and appropriate name for what scientists call a flock of the pink birds. Berners, who had an intimate knowledge of wildlife, may not have intended these names to be taken seriously, but they were repeated through the ages and are now commonly used. The book is attributed to Juliana Berners who gave animal groups imaginative yet oddly appropriate names. Many of the group names can be traced back to The Book of Saint Albans, published in 1486, about angling, hawking, and hunting. And, many of these animal groups have colorful, fanciful names: a murder of crows, a covey of partridges, a clowder of cats. Strangely, terms of venery is a collective noun that means a group of animals. ĭon't trust this list many of these entries are fanciful and never found outside of word lists.Ī cast, company, condescension, cry, queue, stage, troupe of actorsĪ flight, squadron (aeroplanes), wing of aircraftĪ choir, chorus, flight, host, or pinhead of angelsĪn army, bike, colony, nest, soviet, swarm of antsĪ battery, park, rumble, troop of artilleryĪ congress, flange, rumpus, tribe, troop, troupe of baboonsĪ colony of bacteria (a culture if laboratory-grown)Ī maul, pack, sloth, or sleuth of bearsĪ bike, bike cast, byke, cast (secondary swarm), cluster, colony, commonwealth, erst, flight, drift, game, grist, hive, hum, rabble, stand, or swarm of beesĪ congregation, dissimulation (small birds), fleet, flight, flock, parcel, pod, roost, volary / volery (in an aviary) of birdsĪ colony of birds (roosting in large numbers)Ī cloud, flock, grind, merl of blackbirdsĪ drift (herded), herd, singular, singularity, sounder of boarsĪ chain of bobolinks (polygamous bird, Ricebird)Ī blush, boister, leer, passel or rascal of boysĪ flight, flutter, kaleidoscope, rabble, rainbow, school fish, swarm, or wing of butterfliesĪ caravan, flock, herd, scorn, train of camelsĪ tok of capercaillies (i.e.What do hunting and sexual desires have in common? We could point to several things, but from a linguistic point of view, we’re referring to the archaic word venery, which means both hunting (from the Latin venor) and sexual desire (from Latin veneria, referring to Venus). Many of these are fanciful or humorous terms which have never had any real currency, but have been taken up by various antiquarian writers. In the lists which follow, terms marked with a + belong to the 15th-century list of " proper terms" contained in the Book of St Albans. Here is a list of collective nouns by subject.Ī collective noun is a special kind of noun that refers to a collection of objects-often animals-such as a flock of birds, or a pride of lions. Please see the discussion on Requests for cleanup ( +) or the talk page for more information and remove this template after the problem has been dealt with. A user suggests that this English appendix be cleaned up, giving the reason: “citations need cleanup”. ![]()
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