Plural forms of nouns

PLURAL FORMS

Regular Plurals

The plural form of most nouns is created simply by adding the letter 's' to the end of the word .

For example:-

• bag - bags
• dog - dogs
• horse - horses
• minute - minutes

But there are some exceptions:-

Nouns that end in -ch, -x, -s, -sh add '-es' to the end of the word.

For example:-

• box - boxes
• boss - bosses
• bush - bushes
• church - churches
• gas - gases

Most nouns ending in -o preceded by a consonant also form their plurals by adding '-es' .

For example:-

• potato - potatoes
• tomato - tomatoes
• volcano - volcanoes

However many newly created words and words with a Spanish or Italian origin that end in -o just add an 's'.

For example:-

• photo - photos | piano - pianos | portico - porticos

Nouns that end in a single 'z', add '-zes' to the end of the word.

For example:-

• quiz - quizzes

Nouns ending in a consonant + y, drop the y and add '-ies'.

For example:-

• party - parties | lady - ladies

Most nouns ending in 'is', drop the 'is' and add '-es'.

For example:-

• crisis - crises | hypothesis - hypotheses | oasis - oases

Most nouns ending in -f or -fe, drop the f and add 'ves'.

For example:-

• calf - calves | half - halves | wolf - wolves

But this isn't a hard and fast rule:-

• belief - beliefs (believes is a verb form)
• brief - briefs
• chef - chefs
• proof - proofs
• roof - roofs
• cafe - cafes
• safe - safes (saves is a verb form)

Irregular Plurals

There are also a lot of common nouns that have irregular plurals.

Most common nouns connected with human beings seem to be irregular.

For example:-

• child - children | person - people | man - men | woman - women

Other irregular common nouns are:-

foot - feet | goose - geese | mouse - mice | tooth - teeth

Some nouns have identical plural and singular forms.

For example:-

• aircraft - aircraft | fish - fish | headquarters - headquarters | sheep - sheep | species - species

In the plural form they still take a plural verb (are / were):-

There is an aircraft in the hangar.

There are some aircraft in the hangar.

There was a fish in the tank.

There were some fish in the tank.

Uncountable nouns on the other hand have no plural form and take a singular verb (is / was ...).

For example:-

• advice
• information
• luggage
• news

There is a lot of luggage on the plane, but a piece of luggage has gone missing.

Some nouns (especially those associated with two things) exist only in the plural form and take a plural verb (are / were...).

For example:-

• cattle
• scissors
• trousers
• tweezers
• congratulations
• pyjamas

Have you seen my scissors? They were on my desk.

Nouns that stem from older forms of English or are of foreign origin often have odd plurals.

For example:-

• ox - oxen
• index - indices or indexes

In compound nouns the plural ending is usually added to the main noun.

For example:-

• son-in-law - sons-in-law
• passer-by - passers-by

Words ending in -us

Linguists can argue for hours about the plural ending of nouns ending in -us. Many of these words are loanwords from Latin and preserve their Latin plural form, replacing the -us suffix with -i, but of course not all words ending in -us have a Latin origin , and some Latin words ending in -us were not pluralized with -i. hence the argument.

For example:-

The English plural of virus is viruses, not viri.

Other Latin loanwords that take the regular English plural -es ending include campus - campuses | bonus - bonuses

Latin loanwords that take a -i plural ending include radius - radii |  alumnus - alumni

If you want to bait a linguist ask them if the plural of crocus is crocuses or croci, or whether the plural of octopus is octopuses, octopi or octopodes.

- See more at: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/pluraltext.html#sthash.qdmrkm9g.dpuf