Terms of venery

A parliament of owls is serious business: 10 animal collective nouns

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Have you ever, while taking a nightly stroll, found yourself in front of a "parliament"? You might have, if there are owls where you live. Or maybe you laughed at an "embarrassment" video online, lovingly filmed by giant panda caretakers. These strange, arguably poetic names assigned to groups of different types of animals are called "terms of venery," and they have long puzzled and fascinated people. What about a herd of wildebeest that inspired the name "confusion"? Let’s look at the stories behind these names and try to decide our favorite.

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Maybe it was their silent flight or their ability to see at night that led the Ancient Greeks to associate owls with wisdom. In their myths, these solemn nocturnal creatures were the symbol of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and reason. That bond never went away, and hundreds of years ago, texts started, jokingly and poetically, referring to groups of owls as "parliaments."

What’s worse, owls rarely congregate in large flocks—in general, they are solitary hunters. That’s why their gatherings can feel like eerie, secretive councils.

When they do get together, they can also be called a "hooting," referring to their peculiar call, or a "stare." This one is not surprising—can you imagine 10 pairs of big, unblinking owl eyes fixed on your own?

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What are the wildebeest confused about? Arguably, migration. These mammals from Eastern Africa are known for their erratic movements during their annual treks. They have been observed changing their group direction abruptly and unpredictably, puzzling humans and predators alike.

Their unpredictability has earned them this funny term of venery, but clearly, wildebeest know what they are doing. Each year, they travel between 500 and 1,000 miles to avoid the dry season, and their migration is admired as a spectacular event to witness in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

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The association between crows and bad omens is not a 20th-century cinema invention. The term "murder of crows" has been in use since at least the 15th century, backed by superstitions and folklore.

Their black feathers and scavenging habits earned them a bad reputation. They were often spotted near battlefields and cemeteries, which reinforced their association with death.

It is believed that their gatherings began being called "murders" in medieval England. Nowadays, however, we know that crows are friendlier than their reputation suggests—they have been known to defend each other against predators and even bring gifts to humans who feed them.

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The poetic term "cauldron" is reserved for large groups of bats flying in concentrated patterns around a particular area. It refers to the swirling formations they create when they swarm. It also fits perfectly with their association with Halloween. Of course, the term was assigned to them for their association with nocturnal mystery.

Other terms used for groups of bats include "colony," "cloud," "swarm," "flight," and "camp." The most common scientific term is "colony," because they tend to roost together in caves or trees. Also, just so you know, baby bats are called "pups."

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Why would alligators congregate? Their collective term "congregation" was given because they would gather under very specific circumstances. They are usually solitary creatures, but they come together in larger groups during mating seasons, when resources like food or basking space are limited, or when water bodies shrink.

They aren’t social animals, which means they aren’t there to make friends—they gather purely for practical needs and survival. Aside from "congregation," a group of alligators can also be called a "float" when they are gliding through water, or a "bask" when they are sunbathing on land.

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If you’ve ever had the fortune of sitting or walking under a tree full of parrots, you might guess why that group is called a "pandemonium." Their chaotic, loud, and sometimes annoying uproar earned them this term of venery, which compares them to hell.

Pandæmonium was a word coined by writer John Milton in his 17th-century work Paradise Lost to refer to the capital of Hell where all demons resided. In Greek, pan means "all" and daimonion means "lesser god." That is exactly the term that was chosen to refer to an intolerable group of parrots, clever and beautiful as the creatures may be.

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Stingrays can gather by the thousands during migrations, and most of us can only imagine that subaquatic image. When they navigate currents together, they can resemble what we know above water as bird formations.

This graceful, coordinated frenzy of stingrays was poetically called a "fever." The term comes from Old English, which referred to quick or restless movement. Because they are fish, their groups can also be called a "school" or a "shoal." These terms themselves derive from the Dutch word schole which means a troop or a crowd.

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Lemurs—especially species like ring-tailed lemurs—are known for their keen, inquisitive nature, with speed and size perfect for squeezing into whichever scene they choose. This mischievous, coordinated behavior has earned them the collective noun "conspiracy."

Unlike owls or alligators, lemurs are highly social animals. They are also very communicative, using rituals, scents, and calls to convey meaning to each other. That’s another reason humans have imagined they are up to secret plots. Their groups can also be referred to as a "troop" or a "cluster."

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Of all the species in the animal kingdom, lions have always enjoyed the best branding. Their manes, strength, and elegance have earned them a cultural association with royalty since the Middle Ages. While "pride" is the most common and culturally significant term, groups of lions are also referred to as "saults" or "troops" in older texts.

A lion’s pride typically runs like a family, with females and their offspring being led by a few males in the group. Prides usually consist of between 10 and 30 members and roam a territory defended by males, while females serve as the primary hunters.

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Geese might look majestic when flying in V-shaped formations, but they can also be a messy lot when chattering on land. When flying, they are called a "skein," "team," or "wedge" (referring to their V-shape). On land, however, their disorganized honking and flapping earned them the term "gaggle."

Like many of these terms, "gaggle" was most likely assigned by Medieval huntsmen, echoing the honking "gagel" sound they made as a group. As admirable as their flying formation and social dynamics are, geese can be very loud and even violent with their feet on the ground.

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Giant pandas are legendarily clumsy. These bamboo lovers are known for their slow movements, goofy tumbles, and a tendency to get themselves into absurd situations—like getting stuck upside down or rolling down hills.

The word "embarrassment" comes from the French word embarras, which means "obstacle" or "hindrance." But the term was likely not adopted for strictly etymological or biological reasons. Instead, it meant to transmit the essence of what 19th-century, English-speaking hunters and naturalists observed when they traveled to China to study and collect pandas. Groups of pandas can also be known as "bamboos" or "cupboards"—the last term remains a still-debated mystery.

Not every sports name is as simple as football

What is "tennis"? Few people know what the names of these sports mean

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Some sports' names are self-explanatory. Even if you've never seen a game of basketball, the word itself suggests it involves a ball and a basket, right? If you've never seen a game of baseball, you'd probably guess it has something to do with a ball and bases. But other sports have names that don’t offer any obvious clues. Where does the word chess come from? Or badminton? Read on to find out what the names of these ten sports actually mean!

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We'll start our list with an ancient sport first recorded over 2,000 years ago, when the Romans played a ball game known as harpastum, a term derived from the Greek word meaning "to seize."

While the sport has taken many forms in different places over time, the version we know today is said to have originated at a school in Rugby, in eastern Warwickshire. In 1823, a pupil named William Webb Ellis, while playing football, broke the rules by picking up the ball and running with it.

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The word tennis is believed to have originated from players calling out the Middle English word tenetz!, which itself comes from the Old French tenez, meaning "hold," "receive," or "take."

In the 1870s, a Welsh army officer patented a game called sphairistike, the Greek word for "ball." He formalized the rules and standardized a tennis set that included racquets, balls, posts, and a net. Although the name sphairistike never caught on, the new game flourished under the simpler name tennis.

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While many people believe that golf was invented by the Scots, modern theories suggest it may have actually originated in the Netherlands. As for the name itself, the most widely accepted etymology is that golf comes into English via the Scots word gouf, which is derived from the Middle Dutch word colf, meaning "stick," "club," or "bat." Another theory is that golf comes from the Scots word goulf, meaning "to strike" or "cuff," which may also trace back to the same Dutch root, colf.

The game is thought to have started in the Netherlands before being brought by Dutch sailors to the east coast of Scotland, where it eventually evolved into the game we know today.

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The world’s second most popular sport after soccer, cricket has been around for a long time. The name of the sport has been traced back to several sources. In the earliest reference, it was spelled creckett, which may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning "stick"; the Old English cricc or cryce, meaning "crutch" or "staff"; or the French word criquet, meaning "wooden post."

Another possible origin is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, which referred to a long, low stool used for kneeling in church—similar in appearance to the long, low wicket with two stumps used in early forms of cricket.

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Depending on where you are, the ice version or one of the summer versions of the game may be more familiar—but in all cases, the word hockey has the same origin. The term itself is of unknown origin, but one theory is that it derives from hoquet, a Middle French word for a shepherd's stave. The curved, or "hooked," ends of the sticks used in hockey would indeed have resembled these staves.

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The game of snooker was created by British Army officers stationed in India during the second half of the 19th century. Combining the rules of other cue sports, Neville Chamberlain (not the British Prime Minister) helped devise and popularize the game we know today.

The word snooker was British Army slang for fresh recruits and inexperienced military personnel. Apparently, Chamberlain used the term to mock the poor performance of a young fellow officer at the table—and the name stuck.

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While most of the world knows this sport as football, in the United States, it is known as soccer. Interestingly, the term soccer originated in England, where the modern sport was born. When the Football Association was created in 1863, Oxford students began distinguishing between "rugger" (rugby football) and "assoccer" (association football). The latter was eventually shortened to soccer.

In the United States, however, a different sport evolved that borrowed elements from football and came to be known as _gridiron football_—later simply shortened to football. As a result, American association football players increasingly adopted the term soccer to avoid confusion.

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Another one of those names that has been around so long it feels carved in stone, chess does, in fact, have an origin. The name comes from Persia and is derived from the Persian word shah, meaning "king." The phrase shah mat, meaning "the king is helpless" or "the king is defeated," was used in Persian to signal checkmate.

When this phrase reached the English-speaking world, it evolved into the term checkmate. The word chess itself ultimately derives from shah as well, though filtered through several languages over time.

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A sport with a name as English as Badminton actually has its origins in Poona, a game played by British Army officers stationed in India in the 1860s. The name Badminton comes from a stately home in Gloucestershire, England—the residence of the Duke of Beaufort—where the game was first played in 1873.

The roots of the sport, however, can be traced even further back to ancient Greece, China, and India. It is closely related to the old children’s game battledore and shuttlecock.

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We finish the list with one of the most famous sports played by the fewest people in the world: Formula 1. With a name so unusual it could be mistaken for a baby food brand or a chemical product, Formula 1 is called that because it refers to a set of rules and regulations all participants must follow. The term "formula" signifies these guidelines, while the numeral "one" represents the highest level of international motorsport competition.