sord
noun rare
A group of mallards: a sord of mallards on the wing...
- In a sord of mallards, the breeding male stands out with his green head, black rear, and yellowish orange bill tipped with black.
- I stood on the shoreline observing a sord of mallards paddling around.
- I had come to observe so we passed a 'sord' of mallards by harmlessly.
Origin
Late Middle English: from obsolete sord 'to rise or soar up', via Old French from Latin surgere 'to rise'; first found in a medieval glossary of collective terms.