Library / English Dictionary

FLOCK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A group of birds

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("flock" is a kind of...):

animal group (a group of animals)

Meronyms (members of "flock"):

bird (warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flock"):

bevy (a flock of birds (especially when gathered close together on the ground))

covert (a flock of coots)

covey (a small flock of grouse or partridge)

exaltation (a flock of larks (especially a flock of larks in flight overhead))

gaggle (a flock of geese)

wisp (a flock of snipe)

flight (a flock of flying birds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A group of sheep or goats

Synonyms:

flock; fold

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("flock" is a kind of...):

animal group (a group of animals)

Meronyms (members of "flock"):

sheep (woolly usually horned ruminant mammal related to the goat)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A church congregation guided by a pastor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("flock" is a kind of...):

congregation; faithful; fold (a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An orderly crowd

Example:

a troop of children

Synonyms:

flock; troop

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("flock" is a kind of...):

crowd (a large number of things or people considered together)

Derivation:

flock (come together as in a cluster or flock)

flock (move as a crowd or in a group)

Sense 5

Meaning:

(often followed by 'of') a large number or amount or extent

Example:

a wad of money

Synonyms:

batch; deal; flock; good deal; great deal; hatful; heap; lot; mass; mess; mickle; mint; mountain; muckle; passel; peck; pile; plenty; pot; quite a little; raft; sight; slew; spate; stack; tidy sum; wad

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Hypernyms ("flock" is a kind of...):

large indefinite amount; large indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flock"):

deluge; flood; inundation; torrent (an overwhelming number or amount)

haymow (a mass of hay piled up in a barn for preservation)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Come together as in a cluster or flock

Example:

The poets constellate in this town every summer

Synonyms:

clump; cluster; constellate; flock

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "flock" is one way to...):

assemble; foregather; forgather; gather; meet (collect in one place)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "flock"):

huddle; huddle together (crowd or draw together)

bunch; bunch together; bunch up (form into a bunch)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

The crowds flock in the streets

Derivation:

flock (an orderly crowd)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Move as a crowd or in a group

Example:

Tourists flocked to the shrine where the statue was said to have shed tears

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "flock" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Sentence frames:

Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

flock (an orderly crowd)

Credits

 Context examples: 

He clumped heavily down the street, driving this little flock before him.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had a very fine flock, and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in the country.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

“He was the flower of the flock, was Flint!”

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

This is effectively the plant cells communicating their timing with neighbouring cells, in a similar way to how schools of fish and flocks of birds coordinate their movements by interacting with their neighbours.

(Plants can tell time even without a brain, University of Cambridge)

Famously, species of tit learned how to pierce milk bottle lids and siphon the cream during the middle of last century – a phenomenon that spread rapidly through flocks across the UK.

(Birds learn from each other’s ‘disgust’, enabling insects to evolve bright colours, University of Cambridge)

So would you, if a flock of strangers came in on you when you were preparing for an examination next day, and every moment was of value.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the fire was built high; and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and women, stood huddled together like a flock of sheep.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and flopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just mad with the feeling that we were free once more.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When the beast felt the smart, he drew back, and roared so loud, that a herd of at least forty came flocking about me from the next field, howling and making odious faces; but I ran to the body of a tree, and leaning my back against it, kept them off by waving my hanger.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He mused over the incident after she had gone, and once or twice broke out into laughter that was bitter as he saw his sister and her betrothed, all the members of his own class and the members of Ruth's class, directing their narrow little lives by narrow little formulas—herd-creatures, flocking together and patterning their lives by one another's opinions, failing of being individuals and of really living life because of the childlike formulas by which they were enslaved.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)