A noun is one of the major parts of speech, used to denote a place, person, thing, or idea. They can be a singular noun referring to a single thing or a plural noun used to denote more than one thing. It is simple to convert a singular to a plural form by adding “-s” or “-es”. However, this tiny change can cover everything to describe the quantity. Read this guide to explore more about plural nouns, comprising plural noun definition, rules, examples, mistakes, and worksheets. So grab a pen and paper to jot down important info from the plural noun guide.
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The plural Noun is the word used to represent two or more people, places, things, or ideas. It can be identified by its endings, such as “-s”. Nouns have two forms: singular (used for one) and plural (more than one). There is a plethora of exceptions; however, diverse rules are utilised for pluralising singular nouns that end in certain letters. In addition, some nouns have irregular plural forms; these plural word don’t adhere to any form-related rules. Although irregular plurals are only found for a small percentage of nouns, it’s nevertheless vital to be aware of them because some of them are commonly used words. In short, the plural noun meaning refers to one or more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
Below are some of the plural noun examples to make you understand this in detail.
This was the detailed plural noun definition, along with its examples. Now let’s move on to the next section to find out the rules for creating plural nouns.
A common noun can become plural by adding “-s”, “-es”,” ies”, “ves” by modifying “us” to “I”, “is” to “es”, “on” to “a”, etc. However, some common nouns persist in being the same in the singular and plural forms. Many learners get confused because irregular plural nouns have some sounds that are the same as plural nouns, but they can be easily identified. For that, using the below-mentioned plural noun rules would be beneficial. This can assist you in comprehending the approach of changing a singular noun to a plural noun. So let’s have a look at the rules of plural nouns.
1. Adding “-s” to the singular noun
Dog= Dogs
Pen = Pens
Chair = Chairs
2. Adding “-es” after a singular noun word
Box = Boxes
Bus = Buses
Tax = Taxes
Wish = Wishes
3. Adding “-ves” for those nouns ending with an “F” or “Fe”
Calf = Calves
Knife = Knives
Wife = Wives
Wolf = Wolves
4. Adding “-es” to nouns ending with an “O”
Volcano = Volcanoes
Mosquito = Mosquitoes
Potato = Potatoes
Mango= Mangoes
Tomato= Tomatoes
5. Adding “-s” to words ending with a “Y” preceded by a vowel
Ray = Rays
Boy = Boys
Toy = Toys
6. Adding “-ies” to words ending with a “Y” preceded by a consonant
City = Cities
Strawberry = Strawberries
Puppy = Puppies
7. Changing “is” to “es”.
Crisis – Crises
Analysis – Analyses
Thesis – Theses
Diagnosis – Diagnoses
8. Changing ‘on’ to ‘a’
Phenomenon = Phenomena
Criterion = Criteria
9. Nouns are used for both the common singular and plural forms
News = News
Scissors = Scissors
Furniture = Furniture
Fish = Fish
10. Irregular noun
Man = men
Woman = Women
Goose = Geese
11. Plural word forms for relationships and hyphenated nouns.
Mother-in-law – Mothers-in-law
Father-in-law – Fathers-in-law
Brother-in-law – Brothers-in-law
Grandfather – grandfathers
Cousin – cousins
These plural noun rules will help you understand how you can convert a singular form to a plural form of a noun. In the next section, let’s explore the difference between a singular and a plural noun.
The major difference between a singular and plural noun is in the quantity they showcase. A singular noun refers to one person, place, thing or idea; on the other hand, a plural noun refers to more than one. Below is the breakdown of the singular and plural forms of nouns in detail.
| Singular Noun | Plural Noun |
|---|---|
| Signify a single thing | Signify two or more things |
| Often used with articles such as “a” or “an,” for example, a cat, an apple | Mostly words are formed by adding “-s” or “-es” to the singular form, for example, cats, apples |
| Some singular noun has irregular plural nouns. | Some have irregular plural forms such as child-children, mouse - mice, man – men, woman –women. |
Understanding the difference between a singular and a plural noun is not that puzzling. This table might clear all your doubts. Now, let’s move forward to explore the rules of plural nouns with subject-verb agreements.
It is important to keep in mind to change the verb when using it with a plural noun accordingly, so that the sentences do not appear to be grammatically incorrect. The plural noun used along with a verb forms included
By using the plural noun rules along with subject-verb agreement, you can easily form the sentences without making any grammatical mistakes. Here are some of the examples
Plural nouns are used in everyday life along with the right tenses forms. However, many learners get confused and use incorrect sentence formation. Therefore, to streamline this process, we have shared the table of nouns and tenses forms along with the plural noun examples in sentences. Note that the bold words are plural nouns and the italicised words are the appropriate tense form.
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Tense |
Plural Form |
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Simple Present Tense |
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Present Continuous Tense |
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Present Perfect Tense |
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Present Perfect Continuous Tense |
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Simple Past Tense |
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Past Continuous Tense |
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Past Perfect Tense (remains the same for singular and plural nouns) |
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Past Perfect Continuous Tense (remains the same for singular and plural nouns) |
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Simple Future Tense (remains the same for singular and plural nouns) |
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Future Continuous Tense |
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Future Perfect Tense |
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Future Perfect Continuous Tense |
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In learning something, sometimes mistakes become the pillar to achieving success, as it helps you to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them on the second attempt. Using plural nouns in daily life is common, but using currently is more vital. Here are some of the tips that can help you use plural nouns properly.
Examples are a helping hand that assists learners in knowing the approach to using the right plural noun in a sentence. So, to help you in this, here are 10 plural noun examples in sentences demonstrating various pluralisation rules.So have a look.
1. Regular Plural: The cats are sleeping. (Adding -s to "cat")
2. Irregular Plural: The children are studying in the class. (Altering the singular noun form "child")
3. Plural with -es: The buses are arriving late. (Adding -es to "bus")
4. Plural with -ies: The babies are playing in the play area. (Modifying -y to -ies in the singular noun word "baby")
5. Irregular Plural: The mice are rushing around the garbage. (Replacing "mouse" with "mice")
6. Plural with -ves: The wives played the game in a group. (Changing "wife" to "wives")
7. Plural with -ves: The knives are used to spread butter on bread. (Altering "knife" to "knives")
8. Plural with -ves: The lives of many people are at stake who met with an accident. (Replacing "life" to "lives")
9. Plural with -ves: In the spring season, the leaves fell from the trees. (Altering "leaf" to "leaves")
10. Plural with -en: The oxen were eating the grass. (Changing "ox" to "oxen")
This list of plural nouns, along with their examples, can help you understand the different plural noun rules and how to use them. Now, let’s solve a plural nouns worksheet to check your learning.
After exploring everything about the plural noun in detail, it’s time to know how you sail across in this journey of nouns. In this plural nouns worksheet, change the highlighted marked noun in the following sentences into the plural form and also use the correct form of the verb. After solving the question, you can cross-check the answer for the answer key.
1. That girl plays the guitar.
2. I bought an apple.
3. The teacher will be here in a ten minutes.
4. The scholar has been working on the project for one week now.
5. Krishna brought home a kitten.
6. The girl was playing tennis.
7. The dog was adopted.
8. Anna had an orange for snacks.
9. Travis picked up a flower for his wife.
10. Jerry likes having fruit for lunch.
Answer Key.
1. Those girls play the guitar.
2. I bought some apples.
3. The teachers will be here in ten minutes.
4. The scholars have been working on the project for one week now.
5. Krishna brought home kittens.
6. The girls were playing
7. The dogs were adopted.
8. Anna had oranges for snacks.
9. Travis picked up flowers for his wife.
10. Jerry likes having fruits for lunch.
In a nutshell, a plural noun is used to refer to more than one place, person, thing, or idea. In nouns, there are two forms: the singular and the plural form. People often make mistakes while using irregular plural nouns, which can make it challenging to express the amount. However, from mistakes you can improve. Moreover, worksheets are the best option to improve your errors. For that, you can solve as many worksheets as you want from our Gradding.com website on plural forms or other nouns like common nouns, singular nouns, proper nouns, etc. and effectively learn English. Experts provide the utmost resources and guidance to become proficient in English grammar.
1. What is a plural noun with examples?
Answer: Plural nouns are used to denote more than one person, place, thing or idea. Also, the plural noun is created by adding “-s” to the singular noun. However, with certain nouns, you may need to change some of the other letters. For example, the singular “cat” becomes plural “cats”, such as “cats” are my favourite pet animals.
2. How do we write plurals?
Answer: For a regular noun, you can either add –s or –es to make it plural. Compound nouns can be made plural by making the compound’s first word the final word. The words can be changed to make a singular noun plural, such as “ves” “, es” “, ies”.
3. What are the rules for plural nouns?
Answer: Most English words are used to form their plural by adding “-s” to the singular form. But there are many rules and exceptions according to the ending of the singular noun. Here is the short explanation of the common rules.
Same singular and plural: Some nouns have a similar form in both singular and plural forms.
4. What is the difference between Plural Nouns vs. Singular Nouns?
Answer: A Singular noun is used to refer to one person, place, thing, or idea, and is often used with indefinite articles such as an apple, a plane, a book, a biscuit, etc. On the other hand, plural nouns refer to more than one word and don’t use any indefinite article, for example, books, dogs, babies, wolves, and more.
5. What is a common mistake with plural nouns?
Answer: The most common mistakes with plural nouns are the incorrect use of apostrophes, pluralising uncountable nouns, irregular plurals, and using plural nouns with singular nouns incorrectly. Using inappropriate articles. These mistakes can lead to misunderstanding the plural form properly.
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