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Etymology and origin of the English word flock

English has two words spelled flock: the group of animals or people, inherited from Old English, and the tuft of wool, borrowed from French.[1][2][3][4]

Pronunciation

flock1 group of animals or people

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
894 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Inherited from
Old English flocc via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *flukkaz

Etymology

The group of animals or people is inherited from Middle English flok,[6][7] inherited from Old English flocc (“band, company, troop”),[1][8][3][9] from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz.[10][11] It is cognate with Old Norse flokkr (“crowd, troop, band”) and Middle Low German vlocke (“crowd, flock of sheep”),[8][3][2][4] and the OED notes that it is not found in the other Germanic languages.[1] Its further origin is unknown.[1][8][4][12][13] Because both the Old English and the Old Norse words were used only of people, the OED doubts a link with fly; it finds a relationship with folk satisfactory in sense but doubtful in sound,[1] and Etymonline notes that such a metathesis would be unusual in Old English.[8] Kroonen, on the contrary, takes the original meaning to be a moving group of people or animals and derives the noun from an iterative verb beside Proto-Germanic *fleugan- (“to fly”),[11] and Orel identifies it with the West Germanic word for a snowflake, flocko.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A band or company of people: the word appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 894,[1][3] and in Old English it was used only of people.[8][4] Bosworth–Toller records it for a company, a troop of soldiers and a band of robbers, and later of a herd of animals.[9]

Semantic evolution

The word was extended to a number of animals moving or feeding together about 1200,[8][1] and to domestic animals kept in someone's charge, especially sheep and goats, in 1340, in Richard Rolle.[1][8] The Middle English Dictionary records it for a flock of sheep, a drove of swine, a flock of birds and even a school of fish.[6] About the same time (before 1340, again in Rolle) it was applied to Christians in relation to Christ or to their pastor, as a shepherd's charge;[1][8][13] it was also used of children in a family.[1] The original sense, a band of people, died out, but returned as a transferred use of the animal sense,[13][1] and the plural flocks meant "great numbers" from 1535.[1] Etymonline notes that the special application to birds is recent, from the 19th century.[8] The verb, from the noun, first meant to gather people into a company or to muster troops, about 1275 (obsolete after the 16th century);[1][12] the modern intransitive sense, to come together or go in great numbers, is recorded before 1400.[1][8]

Timeline

  • 894 – Old English flocc, a band of people, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[1][3]
  • c. 1200 – a number of animals feeding or travelling together.[1][8]
  • c. 1275 – verb, to gather people into a company, muster (now obsolete).[1]
  • 1340 – domestic animals, especially sheep, kept together.[1]
  • before 1340 – the Christians in a pastor's charge.[1]
  • before 1400 – verb, to come together or go in crowds.[1]
  • 1535 – plural, great numbers.[1]
  • 1609 – verb, to crowd around a person.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A group of animals of one kind, especially sheep, goats or birds, that live, feed or move together: a flock of starlings.[14][2][1]
  2. A large number of people; a crowd: Flocks of tourists filled the square.[14][2]
  3. The congregation or body of Christians in the charge of a priest, minister or bishop.[14][2][1]
  4. (archaic) A band or company of people.[2][14][1]

Verb

  1. To gather or move in a flock or crowd: Fans flocked to the stadium.[14][2][1]
  2. To crowd into or around a place or person.[2][1]

Word family

  • flockless

flock2 tuft of wool, fibre

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1250 The Owl and the Nightingale
Borrowed from
Old French floc via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin floccus
Etymology tree of flock2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin floccus
English flock

Etymology

The tuft of wool is inherited from Middle English flok,[6] probably borrowed from Old French floc (“lock of wool, snowflake”),[1][8][3][4] recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1160 for waste wool and lint,[15] from Latin floccus (“tuft of wool, lock of hair”).[1][8][6][12] De Vaan finds no etymology for the Latin word,[16] and Etymonline calls it of unknown origin.[8] Similar words exist in other Germanic languages: Old High German floccho (modern Flocke), Middle Dutch vlocke (modern vlok) and Middle Danish and Middle Swedish forms.[1][3][2] The OED doubts whether these were borrowed from Latin or Romance or are native Germanic words; if native, they would be related to Old Norse flóki (“felt, hair, wool”) and to flake, and could hardly be connected with the Latin word.[1] Barnhart also allows that the English word may be inherited,[17] and Merriam-Webster takes it as probably akin to the German and Low German words and to Latvian plauki (“snowflakes”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tuft of wool, or the waste wool trimmed from a fleece: the first record is flockes in The Owl and the Nightingale, about 1250.[3][6] The OED's first quotation is from 1277, in a London document, for the coarse tufts and refuse of wool used for stuffing.[1]

Semantic evolution

Flocks of wool or cotton were used to stuff mattresses and quilt garments, and in 1483 an Act of Parliament mentions powdered wool or cloth used for thickening cloth;[1] that material later went into flock paper, the raised velvety wallpaper.[1][2] A flock could also stand for something worthless, as in Lyly's "I will never care three flocks", and the verb meant to treat with contempt (1548–1576), after Latin flocci facere.[1][12][2] The verb "to stuff with flock" is recorded from 1530, in Palsgrave, and "to cover a surface with flock" from 1567.[1][2] In chemistry, from 1592, flocks were light, loose masses in a liquid that look like tufts of wool.[1] In the dialects the word meant the fluff given off in making cloth and the stuffing of beds and pillows.[18]

Timeline

  • c. 1250 – flockes, tufts of wool, in The Owl and the Nightingale.[3][6]
  • 1277 – refuse wool or cotton used for stuffing.[1]
  • 1483 – powdered wool or cloth used to thicken cloth.[1]
  • 1530 – verb, to stuff with flock.[1][2]
  • 1548 – verb, to treat with contempt (obsolete by 1576).[1]
  • 1567 – verb, to coat a surface with flock.[1]
  • 1592 – loose, woolly masses in a chemical precipitate.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A lock or tuft of wool, cotton or other fibre.[14][2][1]
  2. Waste wool, cotton or cloth torn into small pieces and used for stuffing mattresses and furniture.[14][2][1]
  3. Very short or powdered fibre stuck onto paper or cloth to give a raised, velvet-like pattern, as in flock wallpaper.[14][2][1]
  4. A light, loose, woolly mass in a liquid, as in a precipitate.[14][1]

Verb

  1. To fill something with flock.[2][1]
  2. To coat or decorate a surface with flock: flocked wallpaper.[14][2][1]

Word family

  • flocky
  • flock paper
  • folk
  • flake
  • floccose
  • flocculent

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  16. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  17. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

  • foster · also from Old English
  • fleet · also from Old English
  • teen · also from Old English
  • priest · also from Old English
  • trap · also from Old English
  • shake · also from Old English
  • blast · also from Old English
  • fighter · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Flock.” Etymologically, 25 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/flock. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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