In
linguistics, a
collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where "objects" can be
people,
animals,
emotions,
inanimate things, concepts, or other things. For example, in the phrase "a pride of
lions,"
pride collective noun.
Most collective nouns encountered in 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 llamas.
Collective nouns should not be confused with mass nouns, or with the collective grammatical number.
Derivation accounts for many collective words. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations.
