sord

plural sords

1. collectiveobsoleterareA flock of mallards.

   A sord of mallards beat off in panic.

   1999, Dexter Petley, Joyride, Fourth Estate, page 203

   2 more examples

   "Oh, I, well, I too fell into error, for I frittered away my morning in stalking yonder exaltation of larks, thinking they were dunlin, and in doing so disturbed the only sord of mallards on the whole marsh."

   1893 September 27, The Bazaar, the Exchange and Mart, London, page 800, column 3

   and now only a sord of Mallards drifted through the dense mats of New Zealand pigmyweed that coated the surface of the water.

   2018, Steve Burrows, A Tiding of Magpies: A Birder Murder Mystery, Oneworld Publications

plural sords

1. obsoleteObsolete form of sward.

   grassy Sord

   1667, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   1 more example

   This is the prettieſt Lovv-borne Laſſe, that euer / Ran on the greene-ſord: […]

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 292, column 2