A definition of collective nouns Collective nouns are nouns that describe a collection, such as “pack,” “gang,” and “flock.” They can be used to describe groups of people, animals or objects. For example: A pack of dogs A gang of thugs A flock of sheep They are used with both singular and plural verbs, but the rules on this are not strict. Usage of single or plural verbs reflects your definition of a collective noun as a single unit or a grouping of individuals. Collective nouns are considered one of the ‘oddities’ of the English language, with a large amount of terms used. Some of these a pretty unusual, such as: A parliament of owls A smack of jellyfish A cowardice of curs Using verbs with collective nouns – singular or plural? A verb is a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence. Should we use singular or plural verbs when using collective nouns? This depends. For example, ...