Nouns: form

 

Singular and plural nouns

Nouns can be either singular or plural. Singular means just one of the person, animal or thing which the noun refers to. Plural means more than one.

singular	plural
a car	three cars
my house	some new houses
that cow	those cows

We use singular verbs with singular nouns, and plural verbs with plural nouns:

My house is the white house on the corner.

Those houses were all built in the 1950s.

 

Forming the plural of nouns

The rules for making the plural of nouns depend on the spelling and pronunciation. Most nouns form their plural by adding -s:

face - faces	school - schools
hole - holes	store - stores
monkey - monkeys	week - weeks
part - parts

In other cases, the plural depends on how the noun ends.

singular	plural	rule
box, watch, bus	boxes, watches, buses	If the noun ends in -ch, -s, -sh, -x or -z, add -es. The plural ending -es. is pronounced /ɪz/ (/ˈbɒksɪz/, /ˈwɒtʃɪz/).
university, baby, ferry	universities, babies, ferries	If the noun ends in a consonant plus -y, change y to i and add -es.
wife, thief, loaf	wives, thieves, loaves	For some nouns ending in -f, change -f to -vesbut note: roof-roofs, belief-beliefs, cliff-cliffs.
potato, cargo, torpedo	potatoes, cargoes, torpedoes	If the noun ends in -o, add -es but note: radio-radios, video-videos.
formula, phenomenon, crisis	formulae, phenomena, crises	Some nouns which come from Latin and Greek form their plurals in special ways.

Here are some important exceptions to the spelling and pronunciation of plural nouns.

singular	plural
child	children /ˈtʃɪldrən/
man	men
woman	women /ˈwɪmɪn/
tooth, foot	teeth /ti:θ/, feet /fi:t/
mouse	mice /maɪs/
sheep, fish, deer	sheep, fish, deer*

The plural has the same form as the singular.