What Does “A Drove of Rabbits” Mean?
“Drove” shares its root with “drove of cattle” and “drove of horses,” English’s traditional term for livestock being actively moved by hand. Applied to rabbits, the connection is a little less obvious than for cattle driven to market, but it likely ties back to the same historical warren-management system referenced in “bury”: managed rabbit warrens were periodically harvested, and warreners used techniques including nets and ferrets to drive rabbits from their burrows in numbers for collection.
We’re presenting this as the most plausible explanation rather than a fully documented certainty, since a precise historical source describing the exact use of “drove” for rabbits specifically wasn’t something we could confirm. What is well established is that managed warrening was a serious agricultural operation for centuries, and moving or flushing rabbits in coordinated numbers, whether by driving, netting, or ferreting, was simply part of how that system worked.
Example: “The warrener’s records mentioned a drove of rabbits taken from the lower field that autumn.”
Related: Collective Nouns for Mammals · What Is a Group of Rabbits Called?