Last night at the French conversation group one of the things we talked about was collective nouns or les noms collectifs.

There are plenty of these in English, like a flamboyance of flamingoes, a charm of goldfinches, a kindle of kittens, a cartload of monkeys, and so on.

We couldn’t think of many in French, so I thought I’d investigate. Here’s what I found:

– un amas de bois = a heap of wood
– un banc de poissons = a shoal of fish
– un banc de baleines = a school/pod of whales
– une bande de copains = a group of friends
– une bande d’idiots = a bunch of idiots
– une brassée de roses = an armful of roses
– un ensemble de dents = a set of teeth
– un essaim d’abeilles = a swarm of bees
– un essaim de beautés = a bevy of beauties
– une horde de lions = a pride of lions
– une horde de barbares = a horde of barbarians
– une meute de chiens = a pack of dogs
– une troupe/horde de babouins = a troop of baboons
– un troupeau de vaches = a herd of cows
– un troupeau de mouton = a flock of sheep
– une volée d’oiseaux = a flock of birds

I’m sure there are more. What about in other languages?

By the way, are there collective nouns for linguists and polyglots? Maybe babble or Babel.

Sources: Grammaire AIDENET, Reverso, Wiktionary