Collective Nouns
In linguistics, a collective noun is the name of a number (or collection) of people or things taken together and spoken of as one whole. For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions", pride is a collective noun.
Most collective nouns encountered in everyday speech, such as "group", are mundane and are not specific to one kind of constituent object. For example, the terms "group of people", "group of dogs", and "group of ideas" are all correct uses. Others, especially words belonging to the large subset of collective nouns known as terms of venery (words for groups of animals), are specific to one kind of constituent object. For example, "pride" as a term of venery refers to lions, but not to dogs or cows.
Collective nouns should not be confused with mass nouns, or with the collective grammatical number.
Read more about Collective Nouns: Derivational Collectives, Metonymic Merging of Grammatical Number, Terms of Venery (words For Groups of Animals)
Famous quotes containing the words collective and/or nouns:
“The decision to have a child is both a private and a public decision, for children are our collective future.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)
“All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, treble or centuple use and meaning.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)