What do all the words in the list below have in common?

• Murder
• Pride
• Ostentation
• Shrewdness
• School
• Cast
• Array
• Charm
• Parliament

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answer……

All of them are names of groups of animals.

• Murder – crows
• Pride – lions
• Ostentation – peacocks
• Shrewdness – apes
• School – fish
• Cast – falcon
• Array – hedgehogs
• Charm – hummingbirds
• Parliament – owls

This was prompted by a friend’s post showing two crows, titled “Attempted Murder”, and I didn’t get it. I found this great little website (Enchanted Learning) that lists all manner of animals, the male, female and baby names, as well as the group names. I only picked some of the more exotic ones for this post.

Now for the etymology. That would be a whole new research project for all these names.