Irregular forms
plural form |
examples |
Ending in -f or –fe plural usually + ve |
leaf - leaves, loaf – loaves, life – lives, calf, half, leaf, self shelf, wharf, elf, hoof, scarf, sheaf, thief, wolf, knife, wife |
Some words ending in -f and all those ending -ff in foreign nouns just take -s |
chief - chiefs, belief - beliefs, cliff – cliffs, scarf - scarfs/scarves |
Person – people
But People - peoples |
Those people are my friends. Most people ( = persons) are good at heart. Most peoples ( = races) have a country of their own. |
+ (r)en |
child - children, ox - oxen brethren (sistren) survives as a plural of brother only in a religious context |
Change of vowel |
man - men, woman - women, foot – feet, goose – geese, tooth – teeth, cow – kine airman - airmen, fireman - firemen, gentleman - gentlemen, postman - postmen, workman – workmen George is six feet tall. |
The plural is regular in |
Germans, Romans, and the Bowmans |
|
mouse - mice; louse – lice, die - dice |
Pence as a collective noun |
pence survives as a plural of penny, but only to indicate a total amount, as in The fare is now tenpence. Tenpence may refer to one silver coin or to ten individual pennies, i.e. coins worth a penny each. |
No change in plural. More than one, collectively. |
sheep - sheep, craft - craft (e.g. boat), aircraft – aircraft, cannon, blues, fish, bison, deer, grouse, mackerel, moose, pike, plaice, salmon, sheep, swine, trout. This fish is good. - Those fish are bad (two separate fishes). That is a deer, a sheep, etc. or Those are deer, sheep. |
No change |
a series – series, a species – species, a means - means |
Nouns, meaning 'a person or people of that nationality', ending in the sound /z/ or /s/ |
a hundred Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Swiss |
In definite numbers and measurements, hundred, thousand, million, dozen, score (= 20), gross (= 144), stone (= 14 pounds), hundredweight, head (of cattle), quid have the same form for singular and plural. Thus:
A hundred pages. Two hundred dollars. Three thousand four hundred men.
The normal span of a man's life is three score and ten (years).
The farmer was too fat: he weighed nineteen stone.
He owned a hundred head of cattle.
Only plurals
Some English nouns are more common in the plural form. These occur in a number of categories:
Clothing: clothes, jeans, trousers, pajamas, trunks, dungarees
Tools/equipment: scissors, glasses (spectacles), scales, handcuffs, pliers
Games: dominoes, darts, cards, bowls
Subjects/activities: physics, maths, politics, economics, aerobics, athletics
Other: goods, whereabouts, remains, thanks, news, stairs, proceeds. These nouns may have a singular form with a different meaning or as part of a compound noun: a glass (e.g. wine glass), a pajama party, a dartboard, a trouser pocket.