Number in nouns - Easy Learning Grammar

Singular number is used when the noun refers to one item. Plural number is used when the noun refers to more than one item.Countable nouns have both singular and plural forms.Uncountable nouns and mass nouns do not normally have a plural form. See Types of noun for more on the types of noun.The regular plural ending of an English noun is -s.

cat

cats

These are the exceptions to the normal pattern:

singular noun ending	plural noun ending
-s, -ss, -ch, -x, -zz	-es
focus	focuses
princess	princesses
church	churches
box	boxes
buzz	buzzes
-o	-s or -es
hero	heroes
piano	pianos
potato	potatoes
consonant + y	-ies
baby	babies
hobby	hobbies
vowel + y	-s
key	keys
ray	rays
-f	-s or -ves
hoof	hoofs or hooves
dwarf	dwarfs or dwarves
thief	thieves
roof	roofs
-fe	-ves
knife	knives
life	lives

Irregular plurals

Some nouns have two plural forms.

fish	fish or fishes

Some of them have the same form in the singular and plural.

a sheep	ten sheep
a deer	seven deer

A few change a vowel to form the plural.

man	men
woman	women
foot	feet
mouse	mice

Some nouns form the plural with -en.

child	children
ox	oxen

Since it is not possible to give more than a selection of the irregular forms, you should check in a dictionary if you are in doubt. If the dictionary does not show the plural form, then you can assume that it is regular.Compound nouns normally form the plural by adding -s to the last word of the compound.

a games console	three games consoles
a bookcase	two bookcases
an Indian take-away	two Indian take-aways

There are a few exceptions:A compound noun formed from a noun and an adverb makes the first word plural.

a passer-by

several passers-by

Compound nouns with woman as the first word make both words plural.

a woman doctor	several women doctors
a woman driver	most women drivers

A compound word which ends in -ful normally adds -s after -ful, but there is an alternative form with the -s following the base noun.

a cupful	three cupfuls/cupsful
a spoonful	two spoonfuls/spoonsful

Plural nouns with singular reference

Some nouns referring to clothes and tools where two equal parts are joined together, e.g. trousers, binoculars, and tongs, are treated as being plural and are followed by a verb in the plural.

My shorts are dirty.
The scissors are on the table.

To talk about one of these items we can use the expression a pair of…

John bought a pair of jeans.

To talk about more than one we talk about however many pairs of…

Martina bought five pairs of tights.

When they are used as ordinary numbers, words such as dozen and million have no plural form.
nine million stars two dozen glasses

When they are used to mean a large number, they do have a plural form, which can be used as a partitive.

There are millions of pebbles on the beach.
I saw dozens of children in the playground.

Foreign plurals

Nouns that have come into English from foreign languages can:

keep the plural form of the language they come from.

an axis	two axes
a crisis	two crises

have plurals formed according to the rules for plural in English.

a thesaurus	several thesauruses
	(instead of thesauri)

have two plurals: one from the foreign language and the other formed according to the rules for plural formation in English. The foreign plural is usually kept for scientific or specialized use.

an index	some indexes/indices
a formula	some formulas/formulae

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