group
n. countablen. a number of people or things that are together in one place or belong together. You use this when you talk about a collection of items that share something in common.
n. a number of individuals or things located, gathered, or classed together. Often used to describe a set of entities that share common characteristics or a collective purpose.
A small group of people is waiting outside the building.
The teacher divided the students into a small group for the science project to encourage better collaboration.
Sociologists often study how a primary group, such as a family, shapes an individual's identity differently than a secondary group like a professional association.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *kruppazder. Frankish *kruppbor. Vulgar Latin *cruppus Italian gruppobor. French groupebor. ▲ Italian gruppobor. English group From French groupe (“cluster, group”), from Italian gruppo, groppo (“a knot, heap, group, bag (of money)”). In the "group theory" sense, calqued from French groupe, a term coined by the young French mathematician Évariste Galois in 1830. Cognate with German Kropf (“crop, craw, bunch”); Old English cropp, croppa (“cluster, bunch, sprout, flower, berry, ear of corn, crop”) (whence English crop); Dutch krop (“craw”), Icelandic kroppr (“hump, bunch”). Doublet of crop and croup.
When referring to a group as a single unit, it takes a singular verb in American English, though British English often allows a plural verb.
The group are meeting now.The group is meeting now.In standard American English, collective nouns like 'group' are treated as singular units and require a singular verb.