Regular & Irregular Plural Nouns: How to Make Plurals in English?

Plural Nouns in English! Learn the definition, useful rules to make plural nouns (regular plural and irregular plural) with examples and ESL printable pictures in English.

What are Plural Nouns?

Plural nouns are words used to indicate that typically denotes more than one person, animal, thing, idea or instance. When we want to talk about more than one of anything, we will use plural nouns. In most cases, we just add “s” to the end of a noun to make it plural.

How to Make Plurals

Pluralization in English can be a bit of a tricky game, and as with any language, the key to mastering this aspect lies in practicing through reading and conversing until the variations that appear unpredictable in the beginning become second nature, a matter of habit. Having said that, there are certain principles that are generally applicable that make the task easier by giving us a broad idea of how common words are pluralized. Let us take a look at these.

Regular Plural Nouns

How to make a regular plural noun?

In order to change a singular noun to its plural form, we usually add “s”. For example, the plural of pen is pens. The plural of hat is hats. These are regular plurals. Let take some examples as below:

1. For most nouns, add an ‘s’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Car Cars
Desk Desks
Tree Trees
Ball Balls
Hand Hands

2. For nouns that end with ‘s’, ‘x’, ‘z’, ‘ch’, or ‘sh’, add ‘es’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Boss Bosses
Box Boxes
Topaz Topazes
Leech Leeches
Dish Dishes

3. For some words that end with ‘o’, add ‘es’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Potato Potatoes
Echo Echoes
Hero Heroes

4. For some words that end with ‘o’, add ‘s’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Photo Photos
Piano Pianos
Logo Logos
Radio Radios

5. For some words ending with ‘f’, replace the ‘f’ with a ‘v’ and add ‘es’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Thief Thieves
Loaf Loaves
Half Halves
Calf Calves
Leaf Leaves

6. For some words ending with ‘f’, add an ‘s’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Reefs Reefs
Roof Roofs
Chef Chefs

7. For some words ending with ‘ife’, replace the ‘f’ with a ‘v’ and add an ‘s’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Wife Wives
Knife Knives
Life Lives

8. For common nouns ending with a consonant followed by ‘y’, replace the ‘y’ with an ‘i’ and add ‘es’ at the end of the word.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Nappy Nappies
Poppy Poppies
Fly Flies
Penny Pennies
Sty Sties

Irregular Plural Nouns

How to make an irregular plural noun?

There are many nouns which don’t follow the rule. For example, the plural of sheep is sheep. The plural of person is people. These are irregular plurals. Let take some examples as below:

1. Some nouns are the same in both forms.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Fish Fish
Sheep Sheep
Deer Deer
Tuna Tuna
Trout Trout

2. For some nouns, other letters must be replaced or added, sometimes changing the words completely.

SINGULAR PLURAL
Person People
Ox Oxen
Child Children
Goose Geese
Man Men
Foot Feet

Plural Nouns in English | Infographic

Plural NounsPin

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p.sHaShIdHaR
p.sHaShIdHaR
5 years ago

thanks

Kofi Emma
Kofi Emma
4 years ago

Very insightful

REGINA
REGINA
3 years ago

VERY HELPFUL!!! ????????????????????????????????

Andy Asuah
3 years ago
Reply to  REGINA

I want to see regular and irregular nouns

Andy Asuah
3 years ago

Vvdvg

p.sHsShldHaR
p.sHsShldHaR
3 years ago
Reply to  Andy Asuah

what are you saying?

abdullah
abdullah
3 years ago

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

p.sHsShldHaR
p.sHsShldHaR
3 years ago
Reply to  abdullah

I think he miss that word

p.sHsShldHaR
p.sHsShldHaR
3 years ago

thank you for learning me ????????????????????????

bruno
2 years ago

put more nouns of the same forms

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