What are collective nouns?

A collective noun is a singular word that refers to a group or organization. Any one word that describes more than one person, place, thing, or idea falls under this category.

Some examples of collective nouns are: class, bouquet, public, team, and pack.

Our class is going on a trip to Paris.

In the example, the class consists of more than one person. The people in the group are all going to Paris. Therefore class is a collective noun. While it is possible for a teacher to teach only one student, the teacher would not refer to that student as a class.

Here are more examples of collective nouns in context.

The best team won the championship.

Will the government raise taxes this year?

Napoleon and his army were defeated at Waterloo.

Are collective nouns treated as singular or plural?

Forming sentences with collective nouns may offer additional challenges when you take subject-verb agreement into consideration. Are you supposed to treat collective nouns as singular or plural? In American English, collective nouns are typically treated as singular nouns as illustrated in the following examples:

Correct: My team is going to win.

Incorrect: My team are going to win.

---

Correct: The committee makes the rules.

Incorrect: The committee make the rules.

---

Correct: The herd has traveled across the Serengeti.

Correct: The herd have traveled across the Serengeti.

In the examples above, the singular verb is used because all members of the team, the committee, and the herd are performing the action as a unit.

There are situations when collective nouns act as plural nouns. To determine this, you need to consider the context of the sentence. If the members of the group are doing different things, acting more like individuals, a plural verb is more suitable.

Correct: The audience are all unhappy with the performance for different reasons.

Incorrect: The audience is unhappy with the performance for different reasons.

Some audience members might not have liked their seats, some might not have liked the music, others might not have liked the lighting. The plural verb ‘are’ is more appropriate than the singular verb ‘is’.

Correct: The staff have arrived from their hometowns.

Incorrect: The staff has arrived from their hometowns.

All of the staff members’ hometowns are different. They have traveled individually and probably arrived at different times. Therefore, we should use the plural auxiliary verb ‘have’ instead of the singular auxiliary verb ‘has’.

Learn more about different kinds nouns

There are several categories of nouns, and nouns can fall under more than one category. Some of the categories include common and proper nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, uncountable and countable nouns, and compound nouns.

Noun
(bicycle, Mary, idea)

Proper Noun
(Paris, Mary, Toyota)

Common Noun
(city, woman, car)

Countable Noun
(table, pencil, house)

Uncountable Noun
(water, sand, knowledge)

Abstract Noun
(freedom, kindness)

Concrete Noun
(book, tree)

Collective Noun
(family, team, class)

Compound Noun
(football player, hot dog, handbag)

Let us know what you think!

Need further clarification? Do you have any suggestions on how to improve our examples or explanations? We look forward to seeing your comments below.