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collective noun
(redirected from Group noun)

    Also found in: Medical, Wikipedia 0.04 sec.

collective noun

Singular word used to refer to a group (‘family’, ‘team’, ‘committee’, ‘audience’). Collective nouns usually take singular verbs or pronouns, but this depends on the context. There are special collective nouns for groups of certain animals; ‘a pride of lions’, for example.



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? Mentioned in ? References in periodicals archive
 
This variation is characteristic of group nouns in OE (such as folc 'people'), though, according to Mitchell, "when the collective noun and the verb are in the same clause, the verb is normally singular" (1985: 41, [section]80).
No less than four notes on less by Anderson, John B. / Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
The difference *between collective nouns and other countable nouns is that after a singular group noun (especially in British English) there is often a choice between a singular and plural verb, for example:
Countable, uncountable and collective nouns in the early eighteenth ... by Rozumko, Agata / Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
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