Cattle can be described with several collective nouns, including herd, drove, yoke, team, kine, drift, and mob. A herd is simply a group of cattle kept together, whereas a drove refers to a large group being moved from one place to another. When cattle are penned inside an enclosure, the word fold is used instead.
Both herd and drove trace their roots back to Old English. Herd comes from “heord”, a word meaning a flock of animals, while drove grew out of “draf”, which described a band of animals being driven along from one place to another.
