What Does “An Army of Herrings” Mean?
“Army” is about as dramatic as fish collective nouns get, and it’s not exaggerating by much: herring shoals can number in the tens of millions, moving with a scale and density that early observers likely found genuinely overwhelming, more like an advancing force than a school of fish.
The term probably grew out of exactly that visual: a herring shoal pressing through coastal waters in numbers so vast it could darken the water’s surface for miles, closer to a marching force than anything resembling a typical fish gathering.
Example: “An army of herrings moved through the strait for the better part of a day, the water rippling silver from shore to shore.”
Other Collective Nouns for Herrings
Herring are also known as a cran, a glean, and a shoal. Browse the full Collective Nouns for Fish list.
A Few Herring Facts
- Herring are a critical forage fish, meaning entire food chains, from cod to whales to seabirds, depend on their numbers staying healthy.
- A large herring shoal can be detected from the air by the shimmer it creates just below the surface.
- Herring have been preserved by smoking, salting, and pickling for over a thousand years, among the oldest continuously used food preservation traditions in Europe.
Before the Ranks Disperse…
“Army” might be the boldest word on this list, but for a fish capable of moving in the tens of millions, it barely feels like an exaggeration.