Nouns: form

Singular and plural nouns

Nouns can be either singular or plural. Singular means just one of the person, animal or thing which the noun refers to. Plural means more than one.

We use singular verbs with singular nouns, and plural verbs with plural nouns:

My house is the white house on the corner.

Those houseswere all built in the 1950s.

The rules for making the plural of nouns depend on the spelling and pronunciation. Most nouns form their plural by adding -s:

In other cases, the plural depends on how the noun ends.

singular	plural	rule
box, watch, bus	boxes, watches, buses	If the noun ends in -ch, -s, -sh, -x or -z, add -es. The plural ending -es. is pronounced /ɪz/ (/ˈbɒksɪz/, /ˈwɒtʃɪz/).
university, baby, ferry	universities, babies, ferries	If the noun ends in a consonant plus -y, change y to i and add -es.
wife, thief, loaf	wives, thieves, loaves	For some nouns ending in -f, change -f to -ves but note: roof-roofs, belief-beliefs, cliff-cliffs.
potato, cargo, torpedo	potatoes, cargoes, torpedoes	If the noun ends in -o, add -es but note: radio-radios, video-videos.
formula, phenomenon, crisis	formulae, phenomena, crises	Some nouns which come from Latin and Greek form their plurals in special ways.

Here are some important exceptions to the spelling and pronunciation of plural nouns.

The plural has the same form as the singular.

A good learner’s dictionary will tell you how to make the plural of any noun.