Number in nouns - Easy Learning Grammar
| cat | cats |
| 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 |
| a sheep | ten sheep |
| a deer | seven deer |
| man | men |
| woman | women |
| foot | feet |
| mouse | mice |
| child | children |
| ox | oxen |
| a games console | three games consoles |
| a bookcase | two bookcases |
| an Indian take-away | two Indian take-aways |
| a passer-by | several passers-by |
| a woman doctor | several women doctors |
| a woman driver | most women drivers |
| 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.
- John bought a pair of jeans.
- Martina bought five pairs of tights.
- When they are used as ordinary numbers, words such as dozen and million have no plural form.
When they are used to mean a large number, they do have a plural form, which can be used as a partitive.nine million stars two dozen glasses
- 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 |