collective noun (plural collective nouns)
- (grammar) A noun which, though singular, refers to a group of things or animals.
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, 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.
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 (nl) n
- Finnish: kollektiivisubstantiivi
- French: nom collectif (fr) m
- German: Sammelname (de), Kollektivum (de) n
- Hungarian: gyűjtőnév (hu), gyűjtőfőnév
- Icelandic: safnheiti n
- Italian: nome collettivo (it)
- Japanese: 集合名詞 (ja) (しゅうごうめいし, shūgōmeisi)
- Korean: 집합명사(集合名詞) (ko) (jiphammyeongsa)
- Kurdish:
- Northern Kurdish: 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)
- Welsh: enw torfol m
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