Nouns with special plural forms
(Irregular plural formation of nouns in English)
What nouns have irregular plural forms in English (explanation)?
In the English language, there are nouns with regular plural forms as well as nouns with specific ones in the plural which follow irregular patterns. One reason for such irregularities is that many of them have been borrowed from other languages. Compare such nouns with exceptions in the following:
- Some examples of English nouns that have an irregular plural form. Some of them can also produce two forms – one regular and one irregular:
- General nouns that do not follow a rule and, therefore, form their plural irregularly:
- child → children
- man → men
- woman → women
- foot → feet
- tooth → teeth
- mouse → mice
- louse → lice
- ox → oxen
- goose → geese or gooses
- In addition, some nouns have been adopted from other languages (such as Latin or Greek) into English and, as a result, have particular forms. Such words are called loanwords. In some cases, regular forms of them exist, which are marked in green in the following list:
- basis → bases
- crisis → crises
- diagnosis → diagnoses
- formula → formulae
- oasis → oases
- index → indexes or indices
- analysis → analyses
- alumnus → alumni
- phenomenon → phenomena
- curriculum → curricula
- appendix → appendixes or appendices
- axis → axes
- thesis → theses
- medium → mediums or media
- criterion → criteria
- datum* → data
- *The singular form ‘datum’ is only used in technical jargon.
- syllabus → syllabuses or syllabi
- cactus → cactuses or cacti
- octopus → octopuses or octopi
- General nouns that do not follow a rule and, therefore, form their plural irregularly:
Further explanations relating to ‘Nouns with special plural forms’
The following explanations refer to the topic ‘English nouns with irregular plural formation’ and might be helpful: