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What Is a Group of Fish Called School?

What? Just regular fish.
Did you mean 'why'?

Fine.

Why Is a Group of Fish Called School?

A school of fish

There are two schools in English. Same writing, same pronunciation, but each has its own meaning and origin.


School 🏫

The school that we use to refer an education institution is a Greek origin.

Skholē, meaning idle time.

The ancient Greeks regularly discussed something in their free time. It was their favorite.

The word then became school in English.


School 🐟

The other school is (perhaps) a Proto-Indo-European origin, prefix skel-. Meaning to cut, broadened as a noun to refer a division.

The word then became school in English. This one means group — specifically for sea or marine animals.

This school, which refers to group of marine animals, appeared about couple hundred years earlier than that other school — the place to educate young people — in English.


English has that tendency to jam absorbed multiple different origins into one exact similar word. This is one result example of that tendency. One word with multiple unrelated meanings and origins.

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Now how about a murder of crows?

Crime Scene Crow
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