Murmuration
noun /ˌmɜːmjʊˈreɪʃ(ə)n/ — The hypnotic collective movement of a flock of starlings.
Definition
The collective movement of starlings in their huge winter flocks — the fluid, shapeshifting formations made by thousands of birds moving as one, produced by each bird responding to the movements of its nearest neighbors.
Beyond the definition
Murmuration is one of those natural phenomena that defeats description until you see it — a flock of thousands of starlings moving as one body, rippling and contracting and extending. No conductor, no plan — just the mathematics of neighbor-following producing patterns of extraordinary beauty.
Origin & history
From Latin murmurare (to murmur) + -ation. The collective noun for starlings was used historically; the specific word murmuration gained cultural currency in the 2010s when drone footage revealed the full scale of the phenomenon.
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
The murmuration moved over the marsh like a single living smoke — impossible to predict, impossible to stop watching.
She described the flash mob as a murmuration — no plan, just individual response producing collective beauty.
A murmuration of opinion can form the same way — neighbor influencing neighbor until the whole sky changes.
Synonyms
flocking, starling formation
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 murmuration of starlings
A dense flock of starlings forming a murmuration in the sky.
Here, “murmuration” 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: Skander zarrad · CC BY-SA 4.0 (license)
Resized and converted to WebP; displayed with a fitted crop.