English singular and plural nouns

What are singular nouns?

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Glausie da F.

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Singular nouns definition

Singular nouns are used to refer or identify only one person, animal, quality, thing, place, or an idea. They provide the stem based on which a plural noun can be formed. Often the determiners "a", "an" or "the" are placed before them in a sentence.

Singular nouns examples

• Rope
• Climber
• Sherpa

What are plural nouns?

Plural nouns are used to refer or identify more than one person, animal, quality, thing, place, or an idea. Through the use of the singular pronoun stem and several variations of suffixes, the plural nouns are formed. 

How to form plural nouns

The most common method to turn a singular noun into a plural noun is by adding an "-s" to them.

Warning: However, there are exceptions to the rule that we will show you below.

Singular nouns ending with "f" or "fe"

If the singular noun end with either "f" or "fe" they are exchanged by "ve" prior adding the plural "-s".

Singular nouns ending with “s”, “ss”, “sh”, "z", "o" “ch”, “x”

If the singular noun contains one of these endings there is an "-es" added after them to form their plural form.

Singular nouns ending with "y"

If the singular noun ends with a "y" and the letter before it is a consonant it is replaced by "ies" to form the plural form. If the letter before it is a vowel you only need to add an "-s".

Singular nouns ending with "sis"

If the singular noun ends with a "sis" it is replaced by "ses" to form the plural form.

Irregular plural nouns

Irregular nouns don't follow the same formula previously explained. You need to memorize them to avoid making mistakes. In the tables below are the most commonly used ones. 

Irregular plural nouns list

Constant noun

In this case, the same word is used to describe both a singular and a plural noun. It needs to be understood from the context. 

Nouns that are only plural

In English, there are a few word exceptions that are only in plural form and have no singular form.