Collective comes from the same root as collection. A collective noun names a group, like a collection of something.

Examples: team, choir, jury, committee, herd, pod

Hint: Put the word in this test sentence to see if it works: One _____ is a group.

For example: One team is a group. One jury is a group. One herd is a group.

Beware of plurals! “Students” can be a group, but that doesn’t make the word collective. It is plural.

One student is not a group.

Hint: It is important to be able to identify collective nouns because of the way they agree with verbs. We will cover this in the Verbs module.