Both herd and flock are used of animals (and usually farm animals) that are domesticated and kept under the care of a person. Fish also come in shoals, which comes from an Old English word that means 'multitudes.' If it's a group of one type of aquatic mammal-whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals-then they tend to gather in pods.īut once we get out of the sea, the rules for what to generically call groups of creatures get more complicated. No, not that school: this particular word comes from a Middle Dutch word that refers to a group of animals together.
The fish-true fish, at any rate-are the easiest to classify. But what distinguishes a herd from a flock, or a swarm from a colony? And what do you call a group of fish?
Ask someone about collective nouns and they're liable to holler 'a murder of crows!' or 'an exaltation of larks!' While the dramatic collective nouns are the ones that get the most attention, we use a number of collective terms every day.
