How to change singular nouns to plural

 

Singular & plural nouns

 

Singular refers to one noun whereas plural refers to more than one noun.

1. To make regular nouns plural, add  s to the end.

Cat – cats, house – houses, boy, boys, pen, pens, room, rooms, table, tables

2 .If the singular noun ends in ‑s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, or -z, add ‑es to the end to make it plural.

Bus – buses, marsh – marshes, lunch – lunches

3 In some cases, singular nouns ending in -s or -z, require that you double the -s or -z prior to adding the -es for making them plural.

fez – fezzes, gas –gasses.

4 If the noun ends with ‑f or ‑fe, the f is often changed to ‑ve before adding the -s to form the plural version.  

Wife – wives, wolf – wolves, knife, knives

Exceptions: roofs – roofs, belief – beliefs, , chief – chiefs

5. If a singular noun ends in ‑y and the letter before the -y is a consonant, change the ending to ‑ies to make the noun plural.

City – cities, puppy – puppies, country, countries,

6 If the singular noun ends in -y and the letter before the -y is a vowel, simply add an -s to make it plural.

Ray – rays, boy – boys, play, plays, toy,  toys.

7. If the singular noun ends in ‑o, add ‑es to make it plural.

Potato – potatoes, tomato – tomatoes

Exceptions: photo – photos, piano – pianos, halo – halos

8 If the singular noun ends in ‑us, the plural ending is frequently ‑i.

Cactus – cacti, focus – foci

9 If the singular noun ends in ‑is, the plural ending is ‑es.

Analysis – analyses, ellipsis – ellipses

10 If the singular noun ends in ‑on, the plural ending is ‑a.

Phenomenon – phenomena, criterion – criteria

11 Some nouns don’t change at all when they’re pluralized.

Sheep – sheep, series – series, species – species, deer –deer, fish, fish

You need to see these nouns in context to identify them as singular or plural. Consider the following sentence:

Mark caught one fish, but I caught three fish.

Plural Noun Rules for Irregular Nouns

Irregular nouns follow no specific rules, so it’s best to memorise these or look up the proper pluralisation in the dictionary.

child – children, goose – geese, man – men, woman – women, tooth – teeth, foot – feet, mouse – mice, person – people 

 

 

BUT some nouns have different meaning in the plural forms. Some of them are:

Words:       Meaning    Words        meaning

Manner      Method      Manners    Behaviour

Good          A quality    Goods        Merchandise

Custom      Tradition    Customs    Customs’ department

Character  personality Characters People in a play/ film or novel

Arm            body part   arms           weapons

Force          power         Forces       Army / police etc