Singular and Plural Nouns Definition, Examples and Sentences
Table of Contents
Singular and Plural Nouns
We meet a lot of interesting people in our daily lives, travel to a lot of interesting locations, and learn a lot of intriguing things. The sort of term we use to refer to all this wonderful stuff is known as a noun in grammar. We frequently have varying quantities of information to discuss. You could have one brother or three sisters, for example. You may have 12 cats or only one dog. Your roommate may leave you with three pizza slices or only one half-eaten slice—most likely the one with anchovies! We employ two sorts of nouns to refer to varying amounts of material in all of these situations: singular nouns and plural nouns.
Most singular nouns need an ‘s’ at the end to become plural.
- Plate -> Plates
- Bottle -> Bottles
- Tree -> Trees
- Jacket -> Jackets
- Bat -> Bats
- House -> Houses
- Cat -> Cats
- River à Rivers
A singular noun ending in s, x, z, ch, sh makes the plural by adding-es.
- Bus -> Buses
- Wish -> Wishes
- Pitch -> Pitches
- Box -> Boxes
A singular noun ends in a consonant and then y makes the plural by dropping the y and adding-ies.
- Penny -> Pennies
- Spy -> Spies
- Baby -> Babies
- City -> Cities
- Daisy -> Daisies
Irregular Nouns
When making the plural of the noun, we sometimes change the structure of the noun rather than just adding suffixes such as -s, -es. These words are called irregular nouns. The most common ones are:
- Woman -> Women
- Man -> Men
- Child -> Children
- Tooth -> Teeth
- Foot -> Feet
- Person -> People
- Leaf -> Leaves
- Mouse -> Mice
- Goose -> Geese
- Half -> Halves
- Knife -> Knives
- Wife -> Wives
- Life -> Lives
- Elf -> Elves
- Loaf -> Loaves
- Potato -> Potatoes
- Tomato -> Tomatoes
- Cactus -> Cacti
- Focus -> Foci
- Fungus -> Fungi
- Nucleus -> Nuclei
- Syllabus -> Syllabi/Syllabuses
- Analysis -> Analyses
- Diagnosis -> Diagnoses
- Oasis -> Oases
- Thesis -> Theses
- Crisis -> Crises
- Phenomenon -> Phenomena
- Criterion -> Criteria
- Datum -> Data
The plural form of some nouns is written the same as their singular form:
- Sheep -> Sheep
- Fish -> Fish
- Deer -> Deer
- Species -> Species
- Aircraft -> Aircraft
Irregular verb/noun agreement
Although some nouns are written in written plural, they are used in the singular sense.
- News à The news starts at 6.30 p.m.
- Athletics à Athletics is not good for very old people.
- Linguistics à Linguistics is the study of languages.
- Darts à Dart is a very popular game in England and Canada.
- Billiards à Billiards is played almost all over the world.
Some nouns accept a plural verb and have a fixed plural form. They are either not used in the singular or have a distinct connotation when used in the singular. Trousers, jeans, glasses, savings, gratitude, steps, stairs, customs, congratulations, tropics, wages, eyeglasses, outskirts, products, wits are examples of such nouns.
- Trousers à My trousers are too tight for me to get in easily.
- Jeans à Her jeans are dark red.
- Glasses à Those glasses belong to his dead grandfather.
