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Are Collective Nouns Singular or Plural?
Are Collective Nouns Singular or Plural?
Treat a collective noun (e.g., team, group, company) as singular unless you have a good reason to treat it as plural.A collective noun can be singular or plural depending on the sense of the sentence. If it's too hard to make a decision on singular or plural, precede your collective noun with a term like "members of," forcing you to go plural. For example:
- The team is showing signs of frustration.
- The team are showing signs of frustration or anger.
- The members of the team are showing signs of frustration or anger.

More about Collective Nouns
A collective noun is the word used to represent a group of people, animals, or things. "Group," "team," and "crowd" are examples of collective nouns. You should match your collective noun with a singular verb (e.g., the group is, the team believes, the crowd was moving) unless the context of your sentence makes a singular verb seem awkward or wrong.Therefore, a collective noun can be singular or plural depending on the sense of the sentence. Look at this example:
- The shoal was moving north.
- The shoal were darting in all directions.
Add a Word to Avoid the Issue
To simplify matters, a word for the individuals within the group can be introduced. In the first example below, it is necessary to decide whether the collective noun "jury" should be singular or plural. However, by adding "members of," you are forced to use a plural verb.- The jury is/are to convene at 4 o'clock. (With this example, the writer must decide whether to treat "jury" as singular or plural.)
- The members of the jury are to convene at 4 o'clock.