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In the English language, nouns are inflected for grammatical number—that is, singular or plural. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plurals are formed. Phonetic transcriptions, given inside slashes, are in SAMPA notation.

1 Regular plurals

The plural morpheme in English is suffixed to the end of most nouns. The plural form is usually represented orthographically by adding -s to the singular form (see exceptions below). The phonetic form of the plural morpheme is /z/ by default. When the preceding sound is a voiceless consonant (see phonation), it is pronounced /s/. Examples:

boy boys girl girls cat cats chair chairs

Where a noun ends in a sibilant sound—such as s, sh, x, soft ch—the plural is formed by adding es (also pronounced as z with a neutral vowel sound or short i):

glassFor eyeglasses, see spectacles The physics definition of a glass is a uniform amorphous solid material, usually produced when a suitably viscous molten material cools very rapidly, thereby not giving enough time for a regular crystal lattice to form. glasses dish dishes witch witches

Morphophonetically, these rules are sufficient to describe most English plurals. However, there are several complications introduced in spelling.

The -oes rule: most nouns ending in o preceded by a consonantA consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word consonant comes from Latin meaning "sounding with" or "sounding together", the idea being that consonants do also form their plurals by adding -es (pronounced /z/):

heroThis article is about the type of character. For other meanings, see Hero (disambiguation . Sir Galahad, a prototypical hero In many myths and folk tales, a hero is a man or woman (then often called a heroine , traditionally the protagonist of a story, le heroes potatoThe potato Solanum tuberosum is a perennial tuber of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, which is one of the most widely used vegetables in Europe and North and South America. There are thousands of varieties of potato in cultivation. The potato is unr potatoes volcanoThis article is about volcanoes geology. For the action movie see: Volcano (movie). A volcano (plural, volcanoes) is a geological landform (usually a mountain) where magma (rock of the earth's interior made molten or liquid by high pressure and temperatur volcanoes

The -ies rule: nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant drop the y and add -ies (pronounced /:iz/):

cherryA cherry is both a tree and its fleshy fruit, a type known as a drupe with a single hard pit enclosing the seed. The cherry belongs to the Family Rosaceae, Genus Prunus (along with almonds, peaches, plums, and apricots). Sweet and tart cherries are differ cherries lady ladies

Note, however, that proper nouns (particularly those for people or places) ending in a y preceded by a consonant form their plurals regularly:

Harry Harrys (as in There are three Harrys in our office) GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east Germanys (as in The two Germanys were unified in 1990)

This does not apply to words that are merely capitalised common nouns:

P&O Ferries (from ferry)

A few common nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant form their plurals regularly:

henry henrys zloty zlotys

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Topics: English Plural Nouns Plurals Singular Form Words Common Final...

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