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.
How to use it
Follow this entry’s examples for grammatical form and sentence placement.
Choose “Murder” when the meaning fits your context: The collective noun for a group of crows. Crows are highly intelligent, social birds known for their problem-solving ability and long memories.
Synonyms
flock, group, parliament, congress
Related words
Word in the Wild
Illustrative story: an imagined scene, not a documented event or interview.
A wildlife photographer set up her blind at dawn beside a field in Norfolk. By seven o'clock, she had counted thirty-seven crows on a single stretch of fence, silent, watching the field below.
She had been photographing birds for twenty years and had never found them unsettling until that morning.
"It's the intelligence," she said later. "A flock of starlings is beautiful. A murder of crows is something else — they're watching the way things with plans watch." Whoever named them, centuries ago, was paying attention.
Questions about this word
What does "Murder" mean?
Murder is collective noun meaning: What you call a group of crows — and it fits perfectly.. The collective noun for a group of crows. Crows are highly intelligent, social birds known for their problem-solving ability and long memories.
Where does the word "Murder" come from?
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.