English plurals include the
plural
In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
forms of
English nouns and
English determiners
English determiners (also known as determinatives)
are words – such as ''the'', ''a'', ''each'', ''some'', ''which'', ''this'', and numerals such as ''six'' – that are most commonly used with nouns to specify their referents. The determine ...
. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plurals are formed from the corresponding singular forms, as well as various issues concerning the usage of singulars and plurals in English. For plurals of pronouns, see
English personal pronouns
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to grammatical number, number, grammatical person, person, grammatical case, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of n ...
.
Phonological transcriptions provided in this article are for
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...
and
General American. For more information, see
English phonology.
Meaning
Although the everyday meaning of ''plural'' is "more than one", the grammatical term has a slightly different technical meaning. In the English system of grammatical number, singular means "one (or minus one)", and plural means "not singular". In other words, plural means not just "more than one" but also "less than one (except minus one)". This less-than aspect can be seen in cases like ''the temperature is zero degrees'' (not *''zero degree'') and ''0.5 children per woman'' (not *''0.5 child per woman'').
Form
Regular plurals
The plural
morpheme
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
in English is a sibilant
suffixed to the end of most nouns. Regular English plurals fall into three classes, depending upon the sound that ends the singular form:
Any sibilant
In English, there are six
sibilant
Sibilants (from 'hissing') are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English w ...
consonants: , , , , , and . When a singular noun ends in one of these sounds, its plural is spoken by appending or (in some transcription systems, this is abbreviated as ). The spelling adds ''-es'', or ''-s'' if the singular already ends in ''-e'':
Other voiceless consonants
In most English varieties, there are five non-sibilant voiceless consonants that occur at the end of words: , , , , and ; some varieties also have . When the singular form ends in a
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
other than a sibilant, the plural is normally formed by adding (a voiceless sibilant). The spelling adds ''-s'':
Some that end in or , however, are "near-regular". See section below.
Other voiced phonemes
For a singular noun ending on a non-sibilant voiced consonant, the plural adds (a voiced sibilant) and the spelling adds ''-s'':
In English, all vowels are voiced. Nouns ending in a vowel sound similarly add to form the plural. The spelling usually adds ''-s'', but certain instances (detailed below) may add ''-es'' instead:
=Plurals of nouns in ''-o'' preceded by a consonant
=
Singular nouns ending in ''o'' preceded by a
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
in many cases spell the plural by adding ''-es'' (pronounced ):
However, many nouns of foreign origin, including almost all
Italian loanwords, add only ''-s'':
Plurals of nouns in ''-y''
Nouns ending in a vocalic ''y'' (that is, used as a
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
) preceded by a consonant usually drop the ''y'' and add ''-ies'' (pronounced , or in words where the y is pronounced ):
Words ending in ''quy'' also follow this pattern, since in English ''qu'' is a digraph for two consonant sounds () or sometimes one ():
However,
proper noun
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity ('' Africa''; ''Jupiter''; '' Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
s (particularly names of people) of this type usually form their plurals by simply adding ''-s'': ''the two Kennedys'', ''there are three Harrys in our office''. With place names this rule is not always adhered to: ''
Sicilies'' and ''
Scillies'' are the standard plurals of ''Sicily'' and ''Scilly'', while ''Germanys'' and ''Germanies'' are both used.' Nor does the rule apply to words that are merely capitalized common nouns: ''P&O Ferries'' (from ''ferry'').
Other exceptions include ''
lay-bys'' and ''stand-bys''.
Words ending in a ''y'' preceded by a vowel form their plurals by adding ''-s'':
However, the plural form (rarely used) of ''money'' is usually ''monies'', although ''moneys'' is also found. Also, the plural of ''trolley'' can be either ''trolleys'' or ''trollies'', although the former is more common.
Plurals of nouns in ''-i''
Nouns written with ''-i'' usually have plurals in ''-is'' but some in ''-ies'' are also found.
Near-regular plurals
In Old and Middle English, voiceless
fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
and
mutated
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral rep ...
to voiced fricatives /v/ and /ð/ respectively before a voiced ending.
[
] In some words this voicing survives in the modern English plural. In the case of changing to , the mutation is indicated in the orthography as well; also, a silent ''e'' is added in this case if the singular does not already end with ''-e'':
In addition, there is one word where is voiced in the plural:
Many nouns ending in or (including all words where is represented orthographically by gh or ph) nevertheless retain the voiceless consonant:
Some can do either:
Irregular plurals
There are many other less regular ways of forming plurals, usually stemming from older forms of English or from foreign borrowings.
Nouns with identical singular and plural
Some nouns have identical singular and plural (
zero
0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...
inflection). Many of these are the names of animals:
*''bison''
*''buffalo'' (or ''buffaloes'')
*''carp''
*''cod''
*''deer'' (and all species in the
deer family such as ''
moose
The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...
'' and ''
elk'')
*''fish'' (or ''fishes'')
*''kakapo'' (and other
Māori-derived words)
*''neat''
*''pike''
*''salmon''
*''sheep''
*''shrimp'' or ''shrimps'' (British)
*''squid''
*''trout''
As a general rule,
game
A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...
or other animals are often referred to in the singular for the plural in a sporting context: "He shot six
brace of pheasant", "Carruthers bagged a dozen tiger last year", whereas in another context such as zoology or tourism the regular plural would be used.
Eric Partridge refers to these sporting terms as "snob plurals" and conjectures that they may have developed by analogy with the common English irregular plural animal words "deer", "sheep" and "trout". Similarly, nearly all kinds of fish have no separate plural form (though there are exceptions—such as rays, sharks or lampreys). As to the word ''fish'' itself, the plural is usually identical to the singular, although ''fishes'' is sometimes used, especially when meaning "species of fish". ''Fishes'' is also used in iconic contexts, such as the
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
story of the
loaves and fishes, or the reference in ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American Epic film, epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling The Godfather (novel), 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast inc ...
'', "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." The plurals of the names of fishes either take the ending -s or is the same as the singular.
Other nouns that have identical singular and plural forms include:
*''craft'' (meaning 'vessel'), including ''
aircraft
An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...
'', ''
watercraft'', ''
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...
'', ''
hovercraft'' (but in the sense of a skill or art, the plural is regular, ''crafts'')
*''blues'' (referring to individual songs in the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
musical style: "play me a blues"; "he sang three blues and a calypso")
*''cannon'' (''cannons'' is more common in North America and Australia, while ''cannon'' as plural is more common in the United Kingdom.)
*''chassis'' (only the spelling is identical; the singular is pronounced while the plural is )
*''counsel'' (in the meaning of ''lawyer'')
*''head'' (referring, in the plural, to animals in a herd: "fifty head of cattle": cf ''brace'' above)
*''iris'' (usually ''irises'', but ''iris'' can be the plural for multiple plants; in medical contexts ''irides'' is used, see below)
*''series'', ''species'' (and other words in ''-ies'', from the Latin
fifth declension)
he word ''specie'' refers only to money, coins, from the Latin ablative singular form in the phrase ''in specie''. It has no plural form.*''stone''—as a
unit of weight equal to 14 pounds (occasionally stones)
Many names for
Native American peoples are not inflected in the plural:
*''Cherokee''
*''Cree''
*''Comanche''
*''Delaware''
*''Hopi''
*''Iroquois''
*''Kiowa''
*''Navajo''
*''Ojibwa''
*''Sioux''
*''Zuni''
Exceptions include
''Algonquins'', ''Apaches'', ''Aztecs'', ''Chippewas'', ''Hurons'', ''Incas'', ''Mohawks'', ''Oneidas'', and ''Seminoles''.
English sometimes distinguishes between regular plural forms of
demonyms
A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a Cultural group, group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (Hamlet (place), hamlet, vil ...
/
ethnonyms (e.g. "five Dutchmen", "several Irishmen"), and uncountable plurals used to refer to entire nationalities collectively (e.g. "the Dutch", "the Irish").
Certain other words borrowed from foreign languages such as
Japanese and
Māori are "correctly" not inflected in the plural, although many people are not aware of this rule; see below.
Plurals in ''-(e)n''
The plurals of a few nouns are formed from the singular by adding ''-n'' or ''-en'', stemming from the Old English weak declension. Only the following three are commonly found:
As noted, the word "children" comes from an earlier form "childer". There were formerly a few other words like this: eyre/eyren (eggs), lamber/lambren (lambs), and calver/calveren (calves).
An interesting example may be found embedded in the name of the London parish of
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England.
Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...
, which derives its name from being the Clerks' Well associated with the
Clerkenwell Priory of the
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...
.
The following ''-(e)n'' plurals are found in dialectal, rare, or archaic usage:
The word ''box'', referring to a computer, is sometimes pluralized humorously to ''boxen'' in
hacker subculture, by analogy to ''oxen''. In the same context, multiple
VAX computers are sometimes called ''Vaxen,'' particularly if operating as a cluster. Multiple Unix systems are sometimes referred to as ''Unix boxen,'' or may be called ''Unices'' along the
Latin model.
Apophonic plurals
The plural is sometimes formed by changing the vowel sound of the singular (these are sometimes called ''mutated plurals''):
This group consists of words that historically belong to the Old English consonant declension, see . There are many compounds of ''man'' and ''woman'' that form their plurals in the same way: ''postmen'', ''policewomen'', etc.
The plural of ''mongoose'' is ''mongooses'' or sometimes ''mongeese''. ''Mongeese'' is a back-formation by analogy to ''goose'' / ''geese'' and is often used in a jocular context. The form ''meese'' is sometimes also used humorously as the plural of ''moose''—normally ''moose'' or ''mooses''—or even of ''mouse''.
Miscellaneous irregular plurals
Some words have irregular plurals that do not fit any of the types given here.
*''person''—''people'' (
suppletive; also regular ''persons'', in more formal (legal and technical) contexts; ''people'' can also be a singular noun with plural ''peoples''.)
*''die''—''dice'' (''dice'' is the standard plural for
gaming dice, where it is often also used as the singular, and a variant plural for
integrated circuit dies; in other senses, ''dies'' is used.)
*''penny''—''pence'' (as a fraction of a
pound unit of currency. The coin, worth one penny or one cent, has plural ''pennies''. Similarly for ''halfpenny''.
Decimalisation
Decimalisation or decimalization (see American and British English spelling differences, spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by Power of 10, powers of 10.
Most countries have ...
in 1968–1971 promoted use of "p" for "new penny/pence".)
Irregular plurals from foreign languages
=Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek
=
English has borrowed a great many words from
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a Literary language, literary standard language, standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of Old Latin ...
and
Classical Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archa ...
. Classical Latin has a very complex system of endings in which there are five categories or
declensions
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to wikt:decline#Verb, decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, ...
of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns (some with sub-categories). Usually, in borrowing words from Latin, the endings of the nominative are used: nouns whose nominative singular ends in ''-a'' (
first declension) have plurals in ''-ae'' (''anima'', ''animae''); nouns whose nominative singular ends in ''-um'' (
second declension neuter) have plurals in ''-a'' (''stadium'', ''stadia''; ''datum'', ''data''). (For a full treatment, see
Latin declensions.)
Classical Greek has a simpler system, but still more complicated than that of English. Most loan words from Greek in English are from
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called Classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...
(the Athenian Greek of
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
,
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
, and other great writers), not
Demotic Greek,
Koine (Biblical) Greek, or
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...
. This is because Attic Greek is what is taught in classes in Greek in Western Europe, and therefore was the Greek that the word borrowers knew.
Anglicisation
The general trend with
loanwords is toward what is called ''Anglicisation'' or ''naturalisation'', that is, the re-formation of the word and its inflections as normal English words. Many nouns have settled on, or acquired a modern form from the original (usually Latin). Other nouns have become Anglicised, taking on the normal "s" ending. In some cases, both forms are still competing.
The choice of a form can often depend on context: for a scholar, the plural of ''
appendix'' is ''appendices'' (following the original language); for some physicians, the plural of ''appendix'' is ''appendixes''. Likewise, a
radio
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
or
radar
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
works with ''antennas'', but an
entomologist
Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...
deals with ''antennae''. The choice of form can also depend on the level of discourse: traditional Latin plurals are found more often in academic and scientific contexts, whereas in daily speech the Anglicised forms are more common. In the following table, the Latin plurals are listed, together with the Anglicised forms when these are more common.
Different paradigms of Latin pronunciation can lead to confusion as to the number or gender of the noun in question. As traditionally used in English, including scientific, medical, and legal contexts, Latin nouns retain the classical inflection with regard to spelling; however, those inflections use an
Anglicised pronunciation: the entomologist pronounces ''antennae'' as . This may cause confusion for those familiar with the Classical Latin pronunciation . The words ''alumni'' (masculine plural) and ''alumnae'' (feminine plural) are notorious in this regard, as ''alumni'' in Anglicised pronunciation sounds the same as ''alumnae'' in
Classical Latin pronunciation, and
vice versa.
Because many of these plurals do not end in ''-s'', some of them have been reinterpreted as singular forms: particularly the words ''datum'' and ''medium'' (as in a "medium of communication"), where the original plurals ''data'' and ''media'' are now, in many contexts, used by some as singular mass nouns: "The media is biased"; "This data shows us that ..." (although a number of scientists, especially of British origin, still say "These data show us that ..."). See
below for more information. Similarly, words such as ''criteria'' and ''phenomena'' are used as singular by some speakers, although this is still considered incorrect in standard usage (see
below).
Final ''-a'' becomes ''-ae'' (also ''-æ''), or just adds ''-s'':
Scientific abbreviations for words of Latin origin ending in ''-a'', such as ''SN'' for ''supernova'', can form a plural by adding ''-e'', as ''SNe'' for ''supernovae''.
Final ''-ex'' or ''-ix'' becomes ''-ices'' (pronounced ), or just adds ''-es'':
Final ''-is'' becomes ''-es'' (pronounced ) or ''-ises/-ides'':
Except for words derived from Greek , which become (pronounced or ):
(Some of these are Greek rather than Latin words, but the method of plural formation in English is the same.) Some people treat ''process'' as if it belonged to this class, pronouncing ''processes'' instead of standard . Since the word comes from Latin , whose plural in the
fourth declension is with a long ''u'', this pronunciation is by
analogy, not etymology. ''Axes'' , the plural of ''axis'', is pronounced differently from ''axes'' , the plural of ''ax(e)''.
Final ''-ies'' remains unchanged:
''Specie'' for a singular of ''species'' is considered nonstandard. It is standard meaning the form of money, where it derives from the Latin singular ablative in the phrase ''in specie''.
Final ''-um'' becomes ''-a'', or just adds ''-s'':
Final ''-us'' becomes ''-i'' (
second declension, ) or ''-era'' or ''-ora'' (
third declension
The third declension is a category of nouns in Latin and Greek with broadly similar case formation — diverse stems, but similar endings. Sanskrit also has a corresponding class (although not commonly termed as ''third''), in which the so-ca ...
), or just adds ''-es'' (especially for
fourth declension words, where the Latin plural was similar to the singular):
Final ''-us'' remains unchanged in the plural (fourth declension—the plural has a long ū to differentiate it from the singular short u):
Colloquial usages based in a humorous fashion on the second declension include ''Elvii'' (better Latin would be ''Elvēs'' or Elvidēs) to refer to multiple
Elvis impersonators, and ''Loti'', used by
petrolheads to refer to
Lotus automobiles in the plural.
Some Greek plurals are preserved in English (''cf.''
Plurals of words of Greek origin):
Final ''-on'' becomes ''-a'':
Final ''-as'' in one case changes to ''-antes'':
Final ''-ma'' in nouns of Greek origin can become ''-mata'', although ''-s'' is usually also acceptable, and in many cases more common.
Such ''-ata'' plurals also occur in Latin words borrowed from Greek, e.g. ''poemata''. The ''a'' is short in both languages.
= Irregular plurals from other languages
=
Some nouns of
French origin add an ''-x'', which may be silent or pronounced :
See also below.
Italian nouns, notably technical terms in music and art, often retain the Italian plurals:
Foreign terms may take native plural forms, especially when the user is addressing an audience familiar with the language. In such cases, the conventionally formed English plural may sound awkward or be confusing.
Nouns of
Slavic origin add ''-a'' or ''-i'' according to native rules, or just ''-s'':
Nouns of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
origin add ''-im'' or ''-ot'' (generally m/f) according to native rules, or just ''-s'':
''-ot'' is pronounced ''os'' (with unvoiced ''s'') in the
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
dialect.
Many nouns of
Japanese origin have no plural form and do not change:
Other nouns such as ''kimonos'', ''ninjas'', ''futons'', and ''tsunamis'' are more often seen with a regular English plural.
In
New Zealand English
New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by most English-speaking New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO and Internet standards is en-NZ. It is the first language of the majority of the populati ...
, nouns of
Māori origin can either take an ''-s'' or have no separate plural form. Words more connected to Māori culture and used in that context tend to retain the same form, while names of flora and fauna may or may not take an ''-s'', depending on context. Many regard omission as more correct:
Notes:
Some words borrowed from
Inuktitut
Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...
and related languages spoken by the
Inuit
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...
in Canada, Greenland and Alaska, retain the original plurals. The word ''Inuit'' itself is the plural form. Canadian English also borrows Inuktitut singular ''Inuk'', which is uncommon in English outside Canada.
Nouns from languages other than the above generally form plurals as if they were native English words:
Plurals of compound nouns
The majority of English
compound nouns have one basic term, or
head
A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple ani ...
, with which they end. These are nouns and are pluralized in typical fashion:
Some compounds have one head with which they begin. These heads are also nouns and the head usually pluralizes, leaving the second, usually a
post-positive adjective, term unchanged:
It is common in informal speech to pluralize the last word instead, like most English nouns, but in edited prose aimed at educated people, the forms given above are usually preferred.
If a compound can be thought to have two heads, both of them tend to be pluralized when the first head has an irregular plural form:
Two-headed compounds in which the first head has a standard plural form, however, tend to pluralize only the final head:
In military and naval usage, the terms ''general'', ''colonel'', and ''commander'', as part of an officer's title, are etymologically adjectives, but they have been adopted as nouns and are thus heads, so compound titles employing them are pluralized at the end:
For compounds of three or more words that have a head (or a term functioning as a head) with an irregular plural form, only that term is pluralized:
For many other compounds of three or more words with a head at the front—especially in cases where the compound is ''ad hoc'' or the head is metaphorical—it is generally regarded as acceptable to pluralize either the first major term or the last (if open when singular, such compounds tend to take hyphens when plural in the latter case):
With a few extended compounds, both terms may be pluralized—again, with an alternative (which may be more prevalent, e.g. ''heads of state''):
In some extended compounds constructed around ''o'', only the last term is pluralized (or left unchanged if it is already plural):
See also the
Headless nouns section below.
French compounds
Many English compounds have been
borrowed directly from
French, and these generally follow a somewhat different set of rules. In French loaned compounds with a noun as head and a qualifying adjective, it is correct to pluralize both words, in common with French practice. Usually in French, the noun precedes the adjective:
In some expressions, the adjective precedes the noun, in which case it is still correct to pluralize both words, in common with French practice, although in the English form sometimes only the noun is pluralized:
However, if the adjectives ''beau'' "beautiful/handsome", ''nouveau'' "new", or ''vieux'' "old" precede a singular noun beginning with a vowel or a mute ''h'' (such as ''homme''), they are changed to ''bel'' (as in the example below), ''nouvel'', or ''vieil'' (to facilitate pronunciation in French). In these cases, both the noun and the adjective are pluralized in the English form as in French:
In other French compound expressions, only the head noun is pluralized:
''but'':
Plurals of letters and abbreviations
The plural of individual letters is usually written with ''-'s'':
''there are two a's in this sentence''; ''mind your p's and q's''; ''dot the i's and cross the t's''.
Some people extend this use of the
apostrophe
The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
to other cases, such as plurals of numbers written in figures (e.g. "1990's"), words used as terms (e.g. "his writing uses a lot of ''but's''"). However, others prefer to avoid this method (which can lead to confusion with the
possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...
''-'s''), and write ''1990s'', ''buts''; this is the style recommended by ''
The Chicago Manual of Style
''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (''CMOS'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions (the most recent in 2024) have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publ ...
''.
Likewise,
acronym
An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...
s and initialisms are normally pluralized simply by adding (lowercase) ''-s'', as in ''MPs'', although the apostrophe is sometimes seen. Use of the apostrophe is more common in those cases where the letters are followed by periods (''B.A.'s''), or where the last letter is S (as in ''PS's'' and ''CAS's'', although ''PSs'' and ''CASs'' are also acceptable; the ending ''-es'' is also sometimes seen).
English (like Latin and certain other European languages) can form a plural of certain one-letter abbreviations by doubling the letter: p. ("page"), pp. ("pages"). Other examples include ll. ("lines"), ff. ("following lines/pages"), hh. ("hands", as a measure), PP. ("Popes"), SS. ("Saints"), ss. (or §§) ("sections"), vv. ("volumes"). Some multi-letter abbreviations can be treated the same way, by doubling the final letter: MS ("manuscript"), MSS ("manuscripts"); op. ("opus"), opp. ("opera" as plural of opus).
However, often the abbreviation used for the singular is used also as the abbreviation for the plural; this is normal for most units of measurement and currency. The
SI unit symbols are officially not considered abbreviations and not pluralized, as in 10 m ("10 metres").
Headless nouns
In ''
The Language Instinct'', linguist
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
discusses what he calls "headless words", typically
bahuvrihi compounds, such as ''lowlife'' and ''flatfoot'', in which ''life'' and ''foot'' are not
heads semantically; that is, a lowlife is not a type of life, and a flatfoot is not a type of foot. When the common form of such a word is singular, it is treated as if it has a regular plural, even if the final constituent of the word is usually pluralized in an irregular fashion. Thus the plural of ''lowlife'' is ''lowlifes'', not "lowlives", according to Pinker. Other proposed examples include:
An exception is ''
Blackfoot'', of which the plural can be ''Blackfeet'', though that form of the name is officially rejected by the Blackfoot
First Nations
First nations are indigenous settlers or bands.
First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to:
Indigenous groups
*List of Indigenous peoples
*First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...
of Canada.
Another analogous case is that of sport team names such as the
Miami Marlins and
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. The Maple Leafs compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the A ...
. For these, see below.
Defective nouns
Plurals without singulars
Some nouns have no singular form. Such a noun is called a . Examples include ''cattle'', ''thanks'', ''clothes'' (originally a plural of ''cloth'').
A particular set of nouns, describing things having two parts, comprises the major group of in modern English:
*glasses (a pair of
spectacles
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses (American English), spectacles (Commonwealth English), or colloquially as specs, are Visual perception, vision eyewear with clear or tinted lens (optics), lenses mounted in a frame that holds them in front ...
),
pants,
panties,
pantyhose,
pliers,
scissors
Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles (bows) opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutting var ...
,
shorts,
suspenders
Suspenders (American English, Canadian English), or braces (British English, New Zealand English, Australian English) are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up skirts or trousers. The straps may be elasticated, either entir ...
,
tongs
Tongs are a type of tool used to grip and lift objects instead of holding them directly with hands. There are many forms of tongs adapted to their specific use. Design variations include resting points so that the working end of the tongs d ...
(metalworking & cooking),
trousers, etc.
These words are interchangeable with ''a pair of scissors'', ''a pair of trousers'', and so forth. In the American fashion industry it is common to refer to a single pair of pants as a ''pant''—though this is a
back-formation
Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...
, the English word (deriving from the French ) was originally singular. In the same field, one half of a pair of scissors separated from the other half is, rather illogically, referred to as a ''half-scissor''. ''Tweezers'' used to be part of this group, but ''tweezer'' has come into common usage since the second half of the 20th century.
Nouns describing things having two parts are expressed in the singular when used as adjectives. Other ' remain unchanged as adjectives.
There are also some plural nouns whose singular forms exist, though they are much more rarely encountered than the plurals:
Notes:
Singulars without plurals
Mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete eleme ...
s (or uncountable nouns) do not represent distinct objects, so the singular and plural semantics do not apply in the same way. Some examples:
* Abstract nouns: deceit, information, cunning, and nouns derived from adjectives, such as honesty, wisdom, intelligence, poverty, stupidity, curiosity, and words ending with "
-ness", such as goodness, freshness, laziness, and nouns which are homonyms of adjectives with a similar meaning, such as good, bad (can also use goodness and badness), hot, and cold.
* In the arts and sciences: chemistry, geometry, surgery, the blues,
[Referring to the musical style as a whole.] jazz, rock and roll, impressionism, surrealism. This includes those that look plural but function as grammatically singular in English, e.g., "Mathematics ''is'' fun" and "thermodynamics ''is'' the science of heat":
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
(and in British English the shortened form 'maths'), physics, mechanics, dynamics, statics,
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...
,
aerodynamics
Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...
,
electronics
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...
, hydrodynamics,
robotics
Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots.
Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...
, acoustics, optics, computer graphics,
ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
,
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, etc.
* Chemical elements and other physical entities: aluminum (U.S.) / aluminium (U.K.), copper, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, equipment, furniture, traffic, air and water
Notes:
Some mass nouns can be pluralized, but the meaning in this case may change somewhat. For example, when someone has two ''grains of sand'', they do not have ''two sands'', but ''sand''. However, there could be the many "sands of Africa": either many distinct stretches of sand, or distinct types of sand of interest to
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...
s or builders, or simply the allusive ''
The Sands of Mars''.
It is rare to pluralize ''furniture'' in this way (though it was formerly more common) and ''information'' is never pluralized.
There are several isotopes of oxygen, which might be referred to as different oxygens. In casual speech, ''oxygen'' might be used as shorthand for "an oxygen atom", but in this case, it is not a mass noun, so one can refer to "multiple oxygens in the same molecule".
One would interpret "Bob's ''wisdoms''" as "various pieces of Bob's wisdom" (that is, "don't run with scissors", "defer to those with greater knowledge"), ''deceits'' as a series of instances of deceitful behaviour (lied on income tax, dated my wife), and the different ''idlenesses'' of the worker as plural distinct manifestations of the mass concept of idleness (or as different types of idleness, "bone lazy" versus "no work to do").
The pair ''specie'' and ''species'' both come from a Latin word meaning "kind", but they do not form a singular-plural pair. In Latin, ''specie'' is the
ablative singular form, while ''species'' is the
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
form, which happens to be the same in both singular and plural. In English, ''species'' behaves similarly—as a noun with identical singular and plural—while ''specie'' is treated as a mass noun, referring to money in the form of coins (the idea is of "
aymentin kind").
Singulars as plural and plurals as singular
Plural words becoming singular
=Plural in form but singular in construction
=
Certain words which were originally plural in form have come to be used almost exclusively as singulars (usually uncountable); for example ''billiards'', ''measles'', ''news'', ''mathematics'', ''physics'', etc. Some of these words, such as ''news'', are strongly and consistently felt as singular by fluent speakers. These words are usually marked in dictionaries with the phrase "plural in form but singular in construction" (or similar wording). Others, such as ''aesthetics'', are less strongly or consistently felt as singular; for the latter type, the dictionary phrase "plural in form but singular or plural in construction" recognizes variable
usage.
=Plural form became a singular form
=
Some words of foreign origin are much better known in their (foreign-
morphology) plural form, and are often not even recognized by English speakers as having plural form;
descriptively, in English morphology many of these simply are not in plural form, because English has naturalized the foreign plural as the English singular. Usage of the original singular may be considered pedantic,
hypercorrective, or incorrect. In the examples below, the original plural is now commonly used as a singular, and in some cases a regular English plural (effectively a
double plural) has been formed from it.
''Magazine'' was derived from Arabic via French. It was originally plural, but in French and English it is always regarded as singular.
Other words whose plurals are sometimes used as singulars include:
Notes:
Back-formation
Some words have unusually formed singulars and plurals, but develop "normal" singular-plural pairs by
back-formation
Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...
. For example, ''pease'' (modern ''peas'') was in origin a singular with plural ''peasen''. However, ''pease'' came to be analysed as plural by analogy, from which a new singular ''pea'' was formed; the spelling of ''pease'' was also altered accordingly, surviving only in the name of the dish ''
pease porridge
Pease pudding, also known as pease porridge, is a savoury pudding dish made of boiled legumes, typically Split pea, split yellow peas, with water, salt and spices, and often cooked with a bacon or ham joint. A common dish in the North-East Of E ...
'' or ''pease pudding''. Similarly, ''termites'' was the three-syllable plural of ''termes''; this singular was lost, however, and the plural form reduced to two syllables. ''Syringe'' is a back-formation from ''syringes'', itself the plural of ''
syrinx'', a musical instrument. ''Cherry'' is from
Norman French
Norman or Norman French (, , Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a '' langue d'oïl'' spoken in the historical and cultural region of Normandy.
The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to describe the administrative languages of '' Angl ...
''cherise''. ''Phases'' was once the plural of ''phasis'', but the singular is now ''phase''. The nonstandard, offensive, and now obsolete ''Chinee'' and ''Portugee'' singulars are back-formations from the standard ''Chinese'' and ''Portuguese''.
''Kudos'' is a singular Greek word meaning praise, but is often taken to be a plural. At present, however, ''kudo'' is considered an error, though the usage is becoming more common as ''kudos'' becomes better known. The name of the Greek sandwich style ''
gyros'' is increasingly undergoing a similar transformation.
The term, from Latin, for the main upper arm flexor in the singular is the ''biceps muscle'' (from ''
biceps brachii''); however, many English speakers take it to be a plural and refer to the muscle of only one arm, by back-formation, as ''a bicep''. The correct—although very seldom used—Latin plural is ''bicipites''.
The word ''
sastrugi'' (hard ridges on deep snow) is of Russian origin and its singular is ''sastruga''; but the imagined Latin-type singular ''sastrugus'' has sometimes been used.
Geographical plurals used as singular
Geographical names may be treated as singular even if they are plural in form, if they are regarded as representing a single entity such as a country: ''The United States is a country in North America'' (similarly with ''the Netherlands'', ''the Philippines'', ''Trinidad and Tobago'', ''the United Nations,'' etc.). However, if the sense is a group of geographical objects, such as islands or mountains, a plural-form name will be treated as plural: ''The Hebrides are a group of islands off the coast of Scotland.''
Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural
Words such as ''army'', ''company'', ''crowd'', ''family'', ''fleet'', ''government'', ''majority'', ''mess'', ''number'', ''pack'', ''party'' and ''team'' may refer either to a single entity or the members of the set composing it. If the latter meaning is intended, the word (though singular in form) may be treated as if it were a plural, in that it may take a plural verb and be replaced with a plural pronoun: (in British English) ''the government are considering their position'' (alternatively ''the government is considering its position''). See
synesis.
Thus, as
H. W. Fowler describes, in
British English
British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
they are "treated as singular or plural at discretion"; Fowler notes that occasionally a "delicate distinction" is made possible by discretionary plurals: "''The Cabinet'' is ''divided'' is better, because in the order of thought a whole must precede division; and ''The Cabinet'' are ''agreed'' is better, because it takes two or more to agree."
[Fowler, H. W., '' A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', 2nd ed., revised by Sir Ernest Gowers (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 403.]
Plurals of numbers
The following rules apply to the plurals of numerical terms such as ''dozen'', ''score'', ''hundred'', ''thousand'', ''million'', and similar:
* When modified by a number, the plural is not inflected, that is, has no ''-s'' added. Hence ''one hundred'', ''two million'', ''four score'', etc. (The resulting quantitative expressions are treated as numbers, in that they can modify nouns directly: ''three dozen eggs'', although ''of'' is used before pronouns or definite noun phrases: ''three dozen of them/of those eggs''.)
* When not modified by a number, the plural takes ''-s'' as usual, and the resulting expression is not a number (it requires ''of'' if modifying a noun): ''I have hundreds'', ''dozens of complaints'', ''the thousands of people affected''. Although the word ''hundred'' is a number if and only if it is both modified by a number and modifies a number itself. ''three hundred thousand dollars''
* When the modifier is a vaguer expression of number, either pattern may be followed: ''several hundred (people)'' or ''several hundreds (of people)''.
* When the word has a specific meaning rather than being a simple expression of quantity, it is pluralized as an ordinary noun: ''Last season he scored eight hundreds''
runs in cricket">run_(cricket).html" ;"title="scores of at least 100 run (cricket)">runs in cricket The same applies to other numbers: ''My phone number consists of three fives and four sixes''.
* Note the expressions ''by the dozen'' etc. (singular); ''in threes'' [=in groups of three] etc. (plural); ''eight sevens are fifty-six'' etc.
Determiners
The demonstrative determiners ''this'' and ''that'' have plural forms ''these'' and ''those'', respectively.
The
cardinal numeral determiners (e.g., ''
twenty people'') do not have plural forms. Apparent examples, such as ''they numbered in the
twenties'' are nouns.
Usage and number agreement
Nouns used attributively
Nouns used attributively to qualify other nouns are generally in the singular, even though for example, a ''dog catcher'' catches more than one dog, and a ''department store'' has more than one department. This is true even for some
binary nouns where the singular form is not found in isolation, such as a ''trouser mangle'' or the ''scissor kick''. This is also true where the attribute noun is itself qualified with a number, such as a ''twenty-dollar bill'', a ''ten-foot pole'' or a ''two-man tent''. The plural is used for nouns: a ''glasses case'' is for eyeglasses, while a ''glass case'' is made of glass (but compare ''eyeglass case''); also an ''arms race'' versus ''arm wrestling''. The plural may be used to emphasise the plurality of the attribute, especially in
British English
British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
but very rarely in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
: a ''careers advisor'', a ''languages expert''. The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for various attributions: ''women killers'' are women who kill, whereas ''woman killers'' are those who kill women.
The singular and plural forms of loanwords from other languages where countable nouns used attributively are, unlike English, plural and come at the end of the word are sometimes modified when entering English usage. For example, in Spanish, nouns composed of a verb and its plural object usually have the verb first and noun object last (e.g. the legendary monster ''
chupacabras'', literally "sucks-goats", or in a more natural English formation "goatsucker") and the plural form of the object noun is retained in both the singular and plural forms of the compound (i.e. singular ''el chupacabras'', plural ''los chupacabras''). However, when entering English, the final s of ''chupacabras'' was treated as a plural of the compound (i.e. the monster) rather than of the object of the verb (i.e. the goats), and so "chupacabra" without an s is the singular in English, even though in Spanish ''chupacabra'' could literally be construed as a creature that sucks only one single goat.
Teams and their members
In the names of sports teams, sometimes a noun will be given a regular plural in ''-s'' even though that noun in normal use has an irregular plural form (a particular case of
headless nouns as described above). For example, there are teams called the
Miami Marlins and the
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. The Maple Leafs compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the A ...
, even though the word ''
marlin'' normally has its plural identical to the singular and the plural of ''leaf'' is ''leaves''. (This does not always apply; for example, there is the
Minnesota Lynx, not *''Lynxes''.) Some teams use a non-standard plural spelling in their names, such as the
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...
and
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The club plays its ...
.
When a sport team's name is plural, the corresponding singular is often used to denote a member of that team; for example a player for the
Cincinnati Reds may be referred to as a ''(Cincinnati) Red''. This also applies to the
St. Louis Blues ice hockey team, even though it is named after the song the "
St. Louis Blues" and thus ''blues'' was originally a singular identical to its plural.
When a team's name is plural in form but cannot be singularized by removing an ''-s'', as in ''Boston Red Sox'', the plural is sometimes used as a singular (a player may be referred to as "a Red Sox"). Oftentimes, the singular "Red Sox" will be pronounced as if it were "Red Sock", even though the spelling suggests otherwise.
When a team's name is singular, as in ''
Miami Heat
The Miami Heat are an American professional basketball team based in Miami. The Heat compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southeast Division (NBA), Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern C ...
'' and ''
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. The Avalanche compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Con ...
'', the same singular word may also sometimes be used to denote a player (''a Heat'', ''an Avalanche''). When referring to more than one player, it is normal to use ''Heat players'' or ''Avalanche players'' (although in the latter case the team's plural-form nickname ''Avs'' is also available).
For the (especially British) treatment of teams as plural even if they have singular names, see above.
Adjectives as collective plurals
Certain adjectives can be used, uninflected, as plurals denoting people of the designated type. For example, ''unemployed'' and ''homeless'' can be used to mean "unemployed people" and "homeless people", as in ''There are two million unemployed.'' Such usage is common with the definite article, to denote people of a certain type generally: ''the unemployed'', ''the homeless''.
This is common with certain nationalities: ''the British'', ''the Dutch'', ''the English'', ''the French'', ''the Irish'', ''the Spanish'', ''the Welsh'', and those where the adjective and noun singular and plural are identical anyway, including ''the Swiss'' and those in ''-ese'' (''the Chinese'' etc.). In the case of most nationalities, however, the plural of the
demonym
A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a group of people ( inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place ( hamlet, village, town, city, region, ...
noun is used for this purpose: ''(the) Americans'', ''(the) Poles''. Cases where the adjective formation is possible, but the noun provides a commonly used alternative, include ''the Scottish'' (or more commonly ''(the) Scots''), ''the Danish'' (or ''(the) Danes''), ''the Finnish'' (or ''(the) Finns''), ''the Swedish'' (or ''(the) Swedes'').
The noun is normally used anyway when referring to specific sets of people (''five Frenchmen'', ''a few Spaniards''), although the adjective may be used especially in case of a group of mixed or unspecified sex, if the demonym nouns are gender-specific: ''there were five French'' (or ''French people'') ''in the bar'' (if neither ''Frenchmen'' or ''Frenchwomen'' would be appropriate).
Numerical quantities
In common parlance, ''plural'' simply means "more than one". A quantity of one may sometimes be grammatically inflected as plural.
Decimals are always plural
Any quantity that includes decimal precision is plural. This includes 1 followed by any number of zeros. It is normal to say ''1.0 gallons per flush'', for instance, ''0.6 units'', or ''3.3 children per couple,'' not *''1.0 gallon,'' *''0.6 unit,'' or *''3.3 child per couple.''
Fractions
Fractions are themselves singular or plural depending on the
numerator (e.g. ''one eighth'' vs ''two eighths''), and whatever they apply to can be singular or plural (e.g., ''three-quarters of the apple(s)''), depending on whether it refers to a fraction of a single item or many items.
Equivalent to zero is usually plural
Any zero quantity can be plural or singular, though plural is the default. So the following plurals are standard.
* ''We have no bananas.''
* ''We have zero bananas.''
* ''We don't have any bananas.''
However, if it has already been established that one item was in question, one can use ''no'' to deny that such an item exists in the singular:
* ''"Can you pass me the banana on your desk?" "There's no banana on my desk."''
Interrogative pronouns
The interrogative pronouns ''who'' and ''what'' generally take singular agreement,
e.g.
* ''Who works there?''
In some cases, a plural verb can be used when the answer is expected to be plural
[
* ''What have big ears and trunks?''
When followed by a plural predicative complement, a plural verb must be used:][
* ''What are the main reasons?''
not
* *''What is the main reasons?''
Following ''which'', a singular verb suggests a singular answer, and a plural verb suggests a plural answer:][
* ''Which of these answers is correct?'' (single choice)
* ''Which of these answers are correct?'' (multiple choice)
When asking ''How many?'', plural is standard (e.g. ''How many bananas?'' not *''How many banana?''), even if the expected answer is only one.
]
Determiners
Many determiners are "indifferent as to the number of the head" noun, while others are selective. The following determiners select a plural head: ''both'', ''several'', ''many'', ''few'', ''a few'', ''you'', ''we'' and all cardinal numerals except ''one''. Along with these, ''a''/''an'' and ''another'' are compatible with quantified plurals (e.g., ''another five days'' but not ''*another days'').
Adjectives
A number of adjectives are used primarily with plural nouns. These include ''numerous'' and ''countless'', though singular examples like ''a numerous class'' or ''a countless multitude'' are also possible.
See also
* English verbs
Verbs constitute one of the main Part of speech, parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflection, inflected. Most combinations of Grammatical tense, tense ...
* English personal pronouns
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to grammatical number, number, grammatical person, person, grammatical case, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of n ...
* Count noun
* Mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete eleme ...
* Singular ''they''
Notes
References
{{Wiktionary, Appendix:English irregular nouns
Plural
In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
Grammatical number