![]() manĝilo 'eating utensil' > manĝilaro 'silverware', 'cutlery'.monto 'mountain' > montaro 'mountain range'.An individual mosquito is a mygga (plural: myggor), but mosquitos as a collective is mygg.Įsperanto uses the collective infix - ar- to produce a large number of derived words:.The following Swedish example has different words in the collective form and in the individual form: das Gebirge, "group of hills, mountain range" gebergte 'mountain range'.Nearly all nouns created in that way are of neuter gender: The root word often undergoes umlaut and suffixation as well as receiving the ge- prefix. German uses the prefix ge- to create collectives. This is a productive ending, as evidenced in the recent coin, " signage". Though the etymology is plain to see, the derived words take on a distinct meaning. Sometimes, the relationship is easily recognizable: baggage, drainage, blockade. The English endings -age and -ade often signify a collective. Late Proto-Indo-European used the ending *t, which evolved into the English ending -th, as in "young/youth". As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations.Īffixes Proto-Indo-European Įarly Proto-Indo-European used the suffix *eh₂ to form collective nouns, which evolved into the Latin neuter plural ending -a, as in "datum/data". Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. Morphological derivation accounts for many collective words and various languages have common affixes for denoting collective nouns. For example, users of British English generally accept that collective nouns take either singular or plural verb forms depending on context and the metonymic shift that it implies. ĭifferent forms of English handle verb agreement with collective count nouns differently. Other examples come from popular culture such as a group of owls, which is called a "parliament". ![]() For example, "pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows. Some collective nouns are specific to one kind of thing, especially terms of venery, which identify groups of specific animals. ![]() For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people ("a group of people"), or dogs ("a group of dogs"), or objects ("a group of stones"). Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. 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.In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. 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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