English is the second most used language in the world. If you know and understand English perfectly, you tend to get better opportunities. The role of nouns in English is tremendous. If you are not aware of the noun, you cannot make the correct sentence. What is a collective noun? Well, you will get complete details about this aspect in the article.
First, let’s know what is a noun? Nouns are words that are used to name a person, animal, place, thing, or abstract idea. You must use the nouns to make a sentence while speaking or writing English. The importance of nouns can be seen in the vocabulary.
A noun is an important word that talks about a person, a thing, or an abstract idea in a sentence. A noun can also answer the question of “who or what”. Do you want to get complete knowledge about collective nouns? If yes, you need to read this article till the end.
This article has meaning, definition, usage, and examples of the collective noun. You will feel confident to use these nouns whenever you speak or write after going through this blog. So, start reading the article now and grab the most incredible information.
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Collective Noun Definition
Collective noun meaning is searched by many millennials to get clarification of using it in English sentences. If you are here to understand the definition, a collective noun represents a collection of individuals, usually people. The collection can be a team (for example eleven football players), a family (for example mother, father, and two children), or a crew (for example 100 sailors).
More collective noun examples are given ahead in this article. You should emphasize that the collective noun refers to the collection of people. It can be a few people, tens or hundreds of people, and even thousands of people. For example committee, jury, senate, company, audience, police, army.
Well, many of these nouns are a collection of people but some others can also refer to the group of animals or objects. For example animals such as a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, and objects such as a fleet of ships, a convoy of trucks. The examples will let you know about these nouns properly. You should go ahead with the article to understand the usage.
Collective Noun Examples
Well, you must have read the definition of a collective noun, now it’s time to understand the collective noun usage through examples. These examples are given according to the usage of these nouns in singular and plural forms. Have a look at the table and understand the sentences perfectly.
| Collective noun treated as singular | Collective noun treated as plural |
| The club was founded in 2003. | The club is currently displaying their best photos. |
| Does Sony make mobile phones? | Does Sony plan to make cars? |
| The board of directors uses this room for its meetings. | The board of directors are eating sandwiches for their lunch. |
| The family next door is very quiet. We never hear them. | My family is always arguing. The neighbors often hear us. |
| The school reopens in September. | The school is preparing for their winter marathon. |
| CNN does like to blow its own trumpet. | CNN does like to blow their own trumpet. |
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Collective Noun Usage
The collective nouns are the collections of people, animals, and objects. These are used in places where groups can be defined with a single word. The collective nouns can also be common nouns or proper nouns if they are being used as the name of a company or organization with more than one entity or person.
These nouns upgrade the quality of your content. The most prominent example of a proper noun as a collective noun is Microsoft. The other examples include
Sony, Apple, CNN, the BBC, the United Nations, WHO, Thai Air, Interpol, the FBI, Cambridge University, Manchester United.
The collective noun can also be used as a plural itself. In simple words, the candidates can use more than one collective noun. The sentence is not degraded or distorted by using multiple collective nouns. How can it be used? Do you want some examples to acknowledge perfectly? It can be used as the following examples. Have a look at them to get it perfect.
#. The many ships’ crews in port at the time were constantly fighting.
#. The two companies have been negotiating for over a week.
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Collective Noun in English
Many people look for the usage of collective nouns in singular or plural forms. The collective noun is a single thing but it contains a group within that word. If you are looking for the answer to the question: a collective noun is singular or plural? You will get the answer here.
A collective noun can be used in both forms. It can be singular or plural depending upon the individuals in a particular group and the collective noun usage in a sentence. If you are using a collective noun with a single meaning or individuals acting together in a word, it is called the singular form of a collective noun which means that it has singular verbs and pronouns.
A good example to explain it is: The jury has delivered its conclusion to the judge. On the other hand, if you use the individuals with their entity, the collective noun will be treated in the plural form which impacts the plural verbs and plural pronouns.
The example of the plural form is: The jury has not concluded because they are still arguing among themselves. You must emphasize that British English treats the common noun in the plural form and American English treats it in the plural form. Therefore, the people speaking British English will use jury as a singular verb whereas the American English speakers will make it singular.
Now, one more important aspect for you to acknowledge and understand is that whether you are using any variety of English, “police” collective nouns will always be used as a plural. You need to make a sentence with this noun according to plural formatting. For example:
#. The police are coming.
#. The police were the first on the scene.
#. The police have issued their report.
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Collective Noun List
The collective noun functions are written above. You must have gone through the above-written paragraphs and hopefully understood the usage of these nouns through definitions and examples.
We use various collective nouns regularly but we hardly focus on them as a learning sphere. A list of collective nouns is given here to let you understand their regular usage of it.
The list is as follows:
heap, bushel, sheaf, quiver, bundle, choir, troupe, posse, mob, class, herd, swarm, staff, battalion, band, colony, pair, packet, wad, fleet, committee, congregation, ensemble, tribe, troop.
If you have understood the complete meaning and function of the collective noun, it’s now the time to understand the compound noun too. The compound noun also brings the things together. It is a noun that is formed from one or more words. It is more versatile than the collective noun. But, you should also know that both of these nouns govern all the other ones with the same rules and formats. Both of them can be used as abstract or concrete nouns as well as singular or plural nouns.
You should practice on different sentences to understand which is a compound noun, collective noun, or both. This will give you better learning of this aspect of English and make you the best candidate.
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Conclusion
We hope that the definition, meaning, and examples given in the article have helped you tremendously to understand the use of these nouns in a sentence. It is of utmost importance to understand the concept properly because it makes you confident to speak and write in English.
Also, you become proficient in understanding the language when somebody else uses it before you. English is an important language nowadays as you get better opportunities due to this language. If you think you should learn the language to use it effectively in the professional as well as personal space, you need to visit the Fluent life website.
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