Murder
collective noun /ˈmɜːdər/ — What you call a group of crows — and it fits perfectly.
Definition
The collective noun for a group of crows. Crows are highly intelligent, social birds known for their problem-solving ability and long memories.
Beyond the definition
No collective noun stops a conversation faster. A murder of crows sounds like a crime scene — and that's exactly why it's perfect. Crows are associated with omens, folklore, and dark intelligence. The word reflects centuries of unease around these eerily clever birds.
Origin & history
From Middle English morther — killing. The term appears in 15th-century lists of collective nouns ('the boke of seynt albans', 1486), chosen for the crow's association with death and ill omen in European folklore.
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
A murder of crows gathered on the wire, silent and watching.
She heard the murder before she saw it — a chaos of black wings overhead.
In the cornfield, a murder of crows had dismantled the scarecrow entirely.
Synonyms
flock, group, parliament, congress
Related words
Word in the Wild
See how this word appears in life, language and stories.
Illustrative sentences and imagined stories for learning — not verified sightings, interviews, or sourced quotations.
Word in focus
A murder of crows
Many crows gathered in the branches of a tree.
Here, “murder” names the whole gathering. Notice the animals together rather than looking for one individual with that name. The photograph illustrates the group; it is not evidence that this particular scene inspired the expression.
Image credit: Jesse Weinstein ( JesseW ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (license)
Resized and converted to WebP; displayed with a fitted crop.