In English grammar, words used to name objects, places, people, animals, and even abstract ideas and concepts are called nouns, and they make up the majority of the English vocabulary.
All nouns can be categorized into different groups, such as common nouns, proper nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, collective nouns, and so on. You may have learned about all these noun types in school.
But did you know that all these major noun groups can be classified into different subgroups? For instance, common nouns can be further divided into three sub-categories – concrete nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns.
Collective nouns can also be sorted into two major categories – singular nouns and plural nouns. In this article, we will talk about singular and plural nouns and how to make singular nouns plural.
Singular and Plural Nouns
All countable common or generic nouns are either singular or plural in number. So what is a singular and plural noun? Let’s check it out.
What Is A Singular Noun?
Words that are used to refer to or describe only one person, animal, place, object, abstract idea, or concept are called singular nouns. For example, words like a boat, a dog, a girl, a city, and a democracy are singular nouns because they talk about only one boat, one dog, one girl, one city, and one democracy.
What Is A Plural Noun?
Words that are used to mean that there is more than one person, place, object, or animal are known as plural nouns. For example, words such as boats, dogs, girls, cities, and democracies are plural nouns. This is because these words are being used to talk about more than one boat, dog, girl, city, and democracy.
Did you notice that we used the same words while giving examples of singular and plural nouns in the above section? If so, then you also must have noticed that we converted three of the singular nouns (boat, dog, girl) into their plural forms (boats, dogs, girls) by adding an -s at the end. But to convert the remaining words (city, democracy) into their plural form, we removed the last letter ‘y’ and added -ies at the end.
Are you wondering why? This is because there are several different rules for forming plurals in the English language. We will discuss these rules in the next section, so continue reading.
Rules For Changing Singular Noun Into Plural Nouns in English Grammar
There are some standard rules that you need to know when converting singular noun forms into their plural forms. We have discussed the standard rules in detail.
Rule 1:
The most common way of forming plural nouns in the English language is by adding an “s” at the end. For example, the plural form of car is cars, and the plural of ball is balls. We have provided some more examples in the chart below:
| Singular | Plural |
| Book | Books |
| Idea | Ideas |
| Cat | Cats |
| Bird | Birds |
| Guy | Guys |
Rule 2:
Nouns that have “y’ as the last letter and a consonant before the “y” can be converted into plural by removing -y and adding -ies. For example, the plural of city is cities. Here are some more examples:
| Singular | Plural |
| Baby | Babies |
| Daisy | Daisies |
| Country | Countries |
| Story | Stories |
| Ally | Allies |
Rule 3:
Nouns that have -y as the last letter and a vowel before the -y can be converted into plurals by adding an- s at the end. For example, the plural of a toy is toys, and the plural of a boy is boys.
| Singular | Plural |
| Day | Days |
| Alley | Alleys |
| Key | Keys |
| Monkey | Monkeys |
| Valley | Valleys |
Rule 4:
Nouns with the last letter -o can be converted to plural form by adding -es to the singular form. For instance, the plural of potato is potatoes, and the plural form of hero becomes heroes.
| Singular | Plural |
| Echo | Echoes |
| Tomato | Tomatoes |
| Veto | Vetoes |
| Buffalo | Buffaloes |
| Cargo | Cargoes |
Rule 5:
Nouns that end with letters -s, -x, -z, -sh, -ss, and -ch can be converted into their plural form by adding an -es at the end. For instance, the plural form of box is boxes, and the plural of class is classes
| Singular | Plural |
| Tax | Taxes |
| Witch | Witches |
| Dish | Dishes |
| Fox | Foxes |
| wish | wishes |
Rule 6:
Nouns that end with the letter -f or -fe can be coveted into plural forms by replacing the -f or -fe with v and adding an -es. For instance, the plural form of life is lives. Similarly, the plural of elf is elves.
| Singular | Plural |
| Wife | Wives |
| Scarf | Scarves |
| Leaf | Leaves |
| Calf | Calves |
| Half | Halves |
Exceptions To The Rules
As with every other rule in life, there are exceptions to the standard rules for pluralization in english grammar too. Here are some examples of words that dont follow the rules mentioned above.
- Plural forms of some nouns have the same spelling as their singular form. For Example
| Singular | Plural |
| Offspring | Offspring |
| Series | Series |
| Aircraft | Aircraft |
| Deer | Deer |
| Moose | Moose |
| Species | Species |
| Barracks | Barracks |
- Some Nouns are only written in Plural forms. These are as follows:
| Singular | Plural |
| Pants | Pants |
| Trousers | Trousers |
| Headphones/Earphones | Headphones/Earphones |
| Slippers | Slippers |
| Stairs | Stairs |
Plural Forms of Irregular Nouns
The nouns that can be converted into their plural forms by following the standard rules are called regular nouns. Those nouns that cannot be converted into their plural forms using the standard pluralization rules are called irregular nouns. Plural forms of some of the most common irregular nouns have been listed below:
| Singular | Plural |
| Woman | Women |
| Man | Men |
| Child | Children |
| Person | People |
| Mouse | Mice |
| Foot | Feet |
| Tooth | Teeth |
| Nucleus | Nuclei |
| Syllabus | Syllabi |
| Cactus | Cacti |
Along with knowing about singular and plural nouns, you also need to know about subject-verb agreement in English grammar. The subject-verb agreement states that the verb in a sentence should complement the gender, person, and number of the subject.
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