Other forms: flocks, flocked, flocking
A flock is a group of birds or sheep moving together. Starlings turning as one over a field at dusk, or sheep pouring through a gate with the dog circling behind them.
Flock takes OF: a flock of geese, a flock of sheep. Other animals get other words — cows come in a herd, fish in a shoal, wolves in a pack — and using flock for them marks you out at once. As a verb it belongs to people: tourists flock to the coast in July, crowds flocked to the free concert. A priest calls his congregation his flock, which keeps the old shepherd picture alive. There is a second, unrelated flock as well: the soft woolly stuffing inside cushions, and the raised fuzzy pattern on flock wallpaper.
1nounflockA group of birds, sheep or goats.
“A flock of geese passed over the house at first light.”
2verbsomewhereTo go somewhere in large numbers.
“Visitors flock to the island every August.”
3nounmembersThe members of a church, thought of as the care of their priest.
“The vicar knew every family in his flock by name.”
4nounsoftSoft waste wool used to stuff cushions and mattresses, or the raised pattern on flock wallpaper.
“The old sofa was stuffed with flock and smelled of dust.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
flock is a group of animals.
Old English flocc meant a flock, a company, a troop, from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz, crowd or troop. The Scandinavian languages kept it almost untouched — Danish, Swedish and Norwegian all say flokk. It may even be related to Old English folc, crowd or band, the word behind folk: two names for people moving together.
Proto-Indo-European
*plewk-
Middle English
flok
English, today
flock
From Middle English flok. From Middle English flok, from Old English flocc (“flock, company, troop”), from Proto-West Germanic flokk, from Proto-Germanic flukkaz (“crowd, troop”). Cognate with German Low German Flock (“crowd, flock”), Danish flok (“flock”), Swedish flock (“flock”), Norwegian flokk (“flock”), Faroese flokkur (“flock”), Icelandic flokkur (“flock, group”). Related also to Norman fliotchet (“flock, crowd”), from Old Norse. Perhaps related to Old English folc (“crowd, troop, band”). More at folk.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA