collective noun

English

Noun

collective noun (plural collective nouns)

1. (grammar) A noun which, though singular, refers to a group of things or animals. Examples: a school of fish, a pride of lions.
   • 1775, John Ash, The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language, volume 1, London: Edward and Charles Dilly in the Poultry; and R. Baldwin in Pater-Noster Row, OCLC 4294888, page 23:

     A hundred, a thousand, few, many, are to be considered as collective nouns, and distinguished as such, by the singular article.

   • 2008, Ron Cowan, The Teacher's Grammar of English with Answers‎^[1]:

     ‎British English tends more than American English to have plural agreement with collective nouns.

Synonyms

• collective
• noun of assemblage
• noun of multitude

Translations

noun referring to a group of similar things

• Afrikaans: versamelnaam, kollektief, collectivum
• Bulgarian: събира́телно съществи́телно n (sǎbirátelno sǎštestvítelno)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 集合名詞, 集合名词 (jíhé míngcí)

• Dutch: verzamelnaam (nl) m, collectivum n
• Finnish: kollektiivisubstantiivi
• French: nom collectif (fr) m
• German: Sammelname (de), Kollektivum (de) n
• Hungarian: gyűjtőnév (hu), gyűjtőfőnév
• Icelandic: safnheiti n
• Japanese: 集合名詞 (しゅうごうめいし, shūgōmeisi)
• Korean: 집합명사 (ko) (jiphapmyeongsa) (集合名詞 (ko))
• Kurdish:

  Kurmanji: hevenav (ku) m

• Macedonian: збирна именка f (zbirna imenka)
• Norman: nom collectif m
• Portuguese: substantivo coletivo m
• Romanian: substantiv colectiv (ro) n
• Russian: собира́тельное существи́тельное n (sobirátelʹnoje suščestvítelʹnoje)
• Scottish Gaelic: ainmear trusaidh m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: збирна именица f

  Roman: zbirna imenica f

• Spanish: sustantivo colectivo (es) m, nombre colectivo (es) m
• Swedish: myckenhetsnamn, myckenhetsord, samlingsnamn (sv), sammanfattningsnamn, sammelbenämning, sammelnamn
• Tagalog: pangngalang palansak
• Thai: สมุหนาม (th) (sà-mù-hà-naam)

See also

• mass noun
• Appendix:English collective nouns

References

• collective noun at OneLook Dictionary Search