collective noun /kəˌlektɪv ˈnaʊn/
noun
- a singular noun, such as committee or team, that refers to a group of people, animals or things and, in British English, can be used with either a singular or a plural verb. In American English it must be used with a singular verb.
Oxford Learners Dictionary
term of vernery //tərm əv ˈvɛnəri/
archaic noun
- refers to the traditional, sometimes humorous, collective nouns used for groups of specific animals (e.g., a “parliament” of owls). Popularized in medieval texts where knowing the correct term was considered a mark of an educated person.
Merriam-Webster
A Blessing of Unicorns and Other Collective Wonders
What do unicorns and collective nouns have in common?
Arguably, not much. But let us assume that unicorns are like birds and, with similar feathers, they flock together. Well then, a group of unicorns needs a name, a name for when they come together.
The obvious solution: our group of unicorns is a herd. Is this the best term for such a mythological marvel? A herd is typically a large group of animals of one kind kept together under human control, as in a herd of horses or cattle. Yet, a herd can also describe wild, social creatures who gather of their own accord. By the very lack of domesticated unicorn ranches, it seems safe to say our first definition of herd is woefully inadequate. Our second use case implies unicorns are social, wild, and congregate, which is fine, but there’s no empirical record to support such assumptions about unicorn habits. This is where a different kind of collective noun must be employed, one that tells us more about imagination than zoology.
Collective nouns do more than organize; they reveal. When we say a pride of lions, we declare our admiration for their majesty. A murder of crows whispers superstition. A parliament of owls credits wisdom to birds who simply hoot at dusk. These terms are less about animals than about us—our fears, our humor, our myths. They show how language is a mirror of human perception, polished with creativity and cultural memory.
The tradition of naming groups so creatively comes from what were once called terms of venery, a medieval pastime among hunters and courtiers. In those days, it was not enough to know how to track a deer or flush a pheasant; one also had to name them with wit. A gaggle of geese, a murmuration of starlings, even a murder of crows were linguistic trophies, proof that one possessed both knowledge and imagination. Over time, these playful inventions slipped free of the hunting field and into the wider language, where they still shimmer with that same mix of precision and poetry.
And they’re fun. English, in particular, is shamelessly playful in this realm: an embarrassment of pandas, a crash of rhinoceroses, a mischief of mice. To name a group is to imagine it. It is a small act of invention that invites us to see the world anew. So if unicorns must gather, let us not settle for herd. Let them be a blessing, a gleam, or most fittingly, a marvel of unicorns.
Language has always been our way of collecting what we cannot capture. So let us continue the tradition. Let us make our own modern bestiary of the collective—a scroll of coders, a chaos of toddlers, a pic of influencers, or a complaint of Karens. The world is full of new creatures and new congregations; all they need now are their names.
In the end, collective nouns remind us that language is not just a tool for naming, it is a record of how we see the world, together.