What Does “A Church of Squirrels” Mean?
“Church” is one of the more unusual, whimsical-sounding collective nouns on this entire site, and we want to be upfront that we couldn’t confirm a clear, documented origin tying it specifically to squirrels. It doesn’t reference any obvious squirrel behavior the way “scurry” or “dray” clearly do elsewhere on this list, and its exact backstory remains genuinely unclear to us.
It’s possible this term simply reflects the same playful, sometimes arbitrary tradition that produced other unexpected animal-group pairings across English collective-noun history, words chosen more for how amusing or surprising the combination sounded than for any literal descriptive fit. Rather than manufacture a neat explanation we can’t back up, we’d rather flag “church of squirrels” honestly as one of this list’s genuine linguistic curiosities.
Example: “The old collective-noun list included ‘a church of squirrels’ with no further explanation offered.”
Related: Collective Nouns for Mammals · What Is a Group of Squirrels Called?