Horseshoe Bend Trail in Arizona, a stream of water carved in between rock formation shaped like a horseshoe

Activities: “What are collective nouns in English?”

By: Erin Kuester, Isabel McKay
Associated Articles

These activities are part of our English Grammar series. The skills we are practicing here are covered in our article:

Activity 1: Matching

How well do you know the collective nouns for different groups of animals? Can you match the collective nouns with their animals?

cows
wolves
sheep
puppies
geese
penguins
dolphins
fish
lions
bees

  1. A colony of

    2. also acceptable, but less common: “a flock of penguins”

  2. A pride of

  3. A herd of

  4. A school of

  5. A swarm of

    6. also acceptable, but less common: “a colony of bees”

  6. A litter of

    7. lions and wolves also have “litters,” but we use the word “litter” with baby animals only, so “a litter of lion cubs” or a “litter of wolf pups” would be correct

  7. A flock of

  8. A pod of

  9. A pack of

  10. A gaggle of

Activity 2: Grammar of collective nouns

Fill in the blank with the correct word. Sometimes more than one answer is possible, but try to use the one that will be more natural.

  • My class [...] sitting in the balcony.

  • Several families [...] coming to the picnic.

  • This deck of cards [...] blue.

  • The litter of puppies [...] learning to howl.

  • Both teams wore [...] colorful uniforms.

  • The class submitted [...] homework assignments.

  • The deck of cards was missing [...] queen of hearts.

  • I picked up a deck of cards and put [...] on the table.

  • It was time for the pack of wolves to eat, so the zookeeper fed [...].

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