CDELORW

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

CDELORW

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

CLOWDER (n. pl. -S)

• Definition(s):
  
  1. (n.) a group of cats

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions:  (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

In order to truly appreciate this word, we need to step back into the late Middle Ages, to a time when hunting and heraldry, religion and folklore, art and poetry, and other features of medieval life combined to influence language in important and long-lasting ways.  Out of this rich cultural melange arose, for example, documents such as medieval BESTIARIES — collections of stories, especially popular in the 12th and 13th centuries, describing real and imaginary animals along with symbolic or allegoric interpretations of their behavior.  The Bestiary of Philippe de Thaon (c. 1120), for instance, noted that the "fox is very sly and very cunning" and that the elephant "has understanding and great memory."

So, too, did many hunting treatises arise in this and later periods, describing in great detail the techniques, terminology, and customs of the chase, as well as the art, language, and symbolism of heraldic crosses and other related topics.  By the 15th century, many such manuals included lists of "terms of venery" (VENERY being an old word for "hunting"), denoting the proper nomenclature for various groups of animals.  The 1486 Boke of Saint Albans, a popular treatise on hawking, hunting,  and coats of arms attributed to Dame Juliana Barnes, included perhaps the most influential of the early lists, a "Compaynys of beestys and fowlys" section with more than 160 "company terms."  Such terms are now often called "collective nouns," "nouns of multitude," or "nouns of assembly."   Many of these old collective nouns for groups of animals are still in widespread use, including:

• a HERD of cattle
• a PACK of wolves
• a COLONY (or ARMY) of ants 
• a SCHOOL of fish 
• a PRIDE of lions  
• a FLOCK of birds 
• a SWARM of bees

Others were surprisingly specific: a group of geese in flight should properly be called a SKEIN, while a group of geese on land should be called a GAGGLE.  (Many of the old lists also included proper collective terms for people and objects, such as a DEN of thieves or a CLUSTER of grapes, but that is a topic for another day.)

Some of these "company terms" have largely lost their earlier meaning, such as BEVY (originally the term for a group of roes or quail) or COVEY (originally the term for a group of partridges), both of which have taken on the general sense of a "group of" almost anything.  Others have survived unscathed to the modern day but are used only very rarely, such as a CLOWDER of cats, a SORD of mallards (from the Latin surgere, "to rise"), or a CETE of badgers (origin unknown).

The lists also contained delightfully colorful and poetic terms, such as:

• a SHREWDNESS of apes
• a SLOTH of bears 
• a BUSYNESS of ferrets 
• a SKULK of foxes 
• a SINGULAR of boars  
• a TIDINGS of magpies (from the belief that the future could be foretold based on their flight)
• a MURDER of crows 
• an EXALTATION of larks  
• a CHARM of finches (from an Old English word cirm, meaning "noise, chatter") 
• an OSTENTATION of peacocks 
• an UNKINDNESS of ravens

Some authorities have taken a dim view of these terms, denouncing them as humorous coinages that were rarely, if ever, used outside of such "fanciful" lists.  But we do not know to what extent the terms on these lists were in actual usage, and the fact remains that these more unusual terms were listed in the same old lists, right alongside "familiar" terms such as SCHOOL of fish and PRIDE of lions — terms that might seem just as "fanciful" or "humorous" if they were not so common.  As with other parts of the language, all we can say for certain is that some of these terms survived the centuries and passed into usage, while others did not.  But I would argue that our English language, now often reduced to the simplest and commonest forms, could stand to benefit from the sort of richness, poetry, and half-humorous double meanings that characterize many of these terms.  Thus, should I ever encounter a party of magpies, I will not hesitate to proclaim it a sign of good TIDINGS!

Having covered roughly 900 years of territory, we can now confidently state that CLOWDER is the proper term for a group of cats.  The origin of this collective term is uncertain, though it may be related to words such as CLUTTER or CLUSTER.  It nearly passed out of use, but, happily, it has been revived somewhat in recent years.

And when I came to myself, I was lying upon the bed, full of bruises and scratches, as though I had been kicked for an hour by Wilful, the baron's unruly horse, or scarified by a clowder of wild cats.
~ Joseph Strutt, Queenhoo-Hall (1808)

"That's a fine clowder of cats you have, Aunt Alex," I told the old dowager one day when I was bringing her some peanut brittle from my mother.
~ Noel Perrin, A Passport Secretly Green (1961)

A clowder of unadoptable, irredeemably feral cats lives at my brother's mill, where he formulates and grinds feed-mixes — corn for energy, soy for proteins — to nourish all manner of farm animals, from cattle to llamas.  The cats arrived not long after the mill opened.
~ Janet Lembke, Because the Cat Purrs: How We Relate to Other Species and Why It Matters (2008)

In the interest of accuracy on the subject of a group of cats, it is also worth noting that a group of kittens or young cats is properly called a KINDLE.

I am convalescing. l have been sick with a virus, a strange influenza that has left me as weak as a kindle of kittens.
~ Kate Atkinson, Emotionally Weird: A Novel (2001)

For those wishing to learn more about collective nouns, James Lipton's quaint An Exaltation of Larks is a good modern starting point and one of the many sources I consulted in researching this topic.  And with that note, I will end this lengthy post, lest I should surpass the patience of my small LEGION of readers!