Plural Noun - Rules, Types and Examples

In the English language, nouns are divided into singular and plural nouns based on their number. This
division is applicable only to common nouns as all proper nouns refer to a particular place or person; in
fact, that is why they are called proper nouns. Read on to learn about plural nouns, their definitions,
rules and examples in detail.

Definition of a Plural Noun

The word plural is defined as ‘relating to or constituting a class of grammatical forms usually used to
denote more than one or in some languages more than two’ and ‘relating to, consisting of, or containing
more than one or more than one kind or class’, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. So a noun
that consists or relates to more than one person, place or thing can be defined as a plural noun.

Changing a Singular Noun to a Plural Noun

A common noun can be made plural by adding an ‘s’, ‘es’, ‘ies’, ‘ves’; by changing ‘us’ to ‘i’, ‘is’ to ‘es’,
‘on’ to ‘a’ and so on. There are some common nouns that remain the same in the singular and plural
forms. A few others do not fall under any other category of plural nouns. They are termed irregular
nouns. These common nouns can be made plural by a change in the spelling or by the addition of a suffix
to the root word.

Check out the following examples of plural nouns for a better understanding.

Examples:

Adding ‘s’

Dog – dogs

Pen – pens

Chair – chairs

Adding ‘es’

Box – boxes

Tax – taxes

Bus – buses

Adding ‘ves’ for nouns ending with an ‘f’ or ‘fe’

Wolf – wolves

Calf – calves
Knife – knives

Wife – wives

Adding ‘es’ to nouns ending with an ‘o’

Mango – mangoes

Potato – potatoes

Tomato – tomatoes

Mosquito – mosquitoes

Volcano – volcanoes

Adding ‘ies’ to words ending with a ‘y’ preceded by a consonant

City – cities

Strawberry – strawberries

Puppy – puppies

Adding ‘s’ to words ending with a ‘y’ preceded by a vowel

Ray – rays

Toy – toys

Boy – boys

Nouns with a common singular and plural form

News – news

Scissors – scissors

Furniture – furniture

Deer – deer

Fish – fish

Police – police

Sheep – sheep
Irregular nouns

Man – men

Woman – women

Child – children

Tooth – teeth

Foot – feet

Mouse – mice

Plural form for hyphenated nouns and relationships

Mother-in-law – Mothers-in-law

Father-in-law – Fathers-in-law

Brother-in-law – Brothers-in-law

Daughter-in-law – Daughters-in-law

The Golden Rule of Using Plural Nouns in Sentences – Subject-Verb Agreement

When using plural nouns, take care to change the verb accordingly so that the sentences do not look
grammatically incorrect. The verbs forms used along with a plural noun include, are (simple present
tense), were (simple past tense), are+verb+ing, were+verb+ing, have+past participle, have+been+past
participle, will+have+verb+ing and will+have+past participle.

Examples:

None of the students has completed their homework. (Group of people)

All the rescued animals have been returned to their natural habitats safely. (Group of different animals)

The textbooks and notebooks are kept on the shelves. (Objects)

All schools in the city are shut down due to the political protests carried out in and around the city.

What is a plural noun?

A noun that consists or relates to more than one person, place or thing can be defined as a plural noun.

How can I change a singular noun into a plural noun?

You can change a singular noun into plural nouns by adding an ‘s’, ‘es’, ‘ies’, ‘ves’, by changing the
spelling or by adding a suffix.
Proper Noun Recognition and Classification

Recognising and classifying proper nouns involves identifying which strings in a text name individuals
and which classes these individuals fall into. Typical name classes include organisations, persons,
locations, dates and monetary amounts. However, further classes can include book and movie titles,
product names, restaurant and hotel names, ship names, etc. The task is made difficult by the
unpredictable length of names (company names can be twelve or more words long), ambiguity between
name classes (Ford can be a company, a person, or a location), embedding, where e.g. a location name
occurs within an organisation name, variant forms, and unreliability of capitalisation as a cue, e.g. in
headlines in English and everywhere in German.

Being able to recognise and classify proper names correctly clearly has relevance for a number of
application areas:

precision in IR systems should increase if multiword names are treated as unitary terms and if variant
forms can be linked;

Nouns: Definition & Types with Examples

Nouns, also called naming words, would probably be the very first part of speech you would have learnt
in your English grammar classes. Anything we can touch, see, smell, taste, hear and hold can be referred
to as nouns.

What Is a Noun?

Examples of Nouns

What Is a Noun?

Nouns are a part of speech that comprise words that are used to name people, places, animals, objects
and ideas. Almost every sentence will definitely have a noun, and they perform different roles in a
sentence. Nouns can act as the subject, an indirect object, a direct object, a subject complement and an
object complement. Nouns can also function as adjectives and verbs.

Examples of Nouns:

People – Rahul, Sheela, Man, Person, Tommy, Women, Girl, The Prime Minister

Places – Bangalore, India, Mexico, North Pole, South Africa, The Nile River, Classroom, Bedroom,
Basketball Court, Cricket Ground, Swimming Pool

Animals/Birds/Aquatic Animals/Reptiles – Lion, Zebra, Snake, Ostrich, Flamingo, Bear, Cat, Fish, Shark

Ideas – Evolution, Invention, Extinction, Argument, Destruction

Objects/Things – Bat, Cycle, Curtains, Paper, Bag, Blackboard, Cupboard

Nouns can be broadly classified into:

1. Proper Nouns: Nouns that are used to name a person, place or thing specifically are called a proper
noun. Proper nouns always begin with a capital letter.

Examples:

My name is Rose. (Name of a particular person)

This is my dog, Bruno. (Name of a specific pet animal owned by someone)

David came back from Minsk. (Name of a specific place)

Louis Philippe is a famous brand of men’s clothing. (Name of a particular clothing brand)

2. Common nouns: Common nouns are those nouns that refer to a generic item, group or place. This
means that, unlike proper nouns, they are not used to identify specific people, places or objects.
Common nouns are not capitalised unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence.

Examples:

I bought a pen yesterday. (Common object)

I am going to school. (Common place)

Only ten employees showed up to work today. (Common group)

The car is out of fuel. (Common items)

3. Singular nouns: These are words that are used to name a single person, place, animal, bird or object.

Examples:

There is a little boy in front of our house. (Single person)

That is my daughter. (Single person)

I found a wounded sparrow in the bush. (Single bird)

A red van has been following us for a long time. (Single object)

4. Plural nouns: Plural nouns refer to a number of people, places, animals or things. Nouns are made
plural by adding an ‘s’ or ‘es’ or ‘ies’ or ‘ves’ to the existing root word. Nouns that end with an ‘s’ remain
the same. Some nouns remain the same in both their singular and plural forms, and some others have
totally different spelling.
Examples:

I need some apples.

Did you find the boxes you were looking for?

I bought mangoes from the market.

We took photos of some deer on our way.

5. Countable nouns are those nouns that can be counted or measured.

Examples:

Tom brought ten packets of lays for the trip. (specific number – ten)

Mom asked me to buy a dozen eggs. (specific – dozen means twelve)

I saw an aeroplane around seven in the morning. (specific – an means one)

6. Uncountable nouns are those nouns that cannot be counted. This category of nouns includes both
concrete and abstract nouns.

Examples:

I have a lot of homework to do. (Not specific)

I have a cup of tea. (Cannot count)

We are facing terrible weather today. (Cannot count)

7. Collective Nouns: A collective noun is a naming word that is used to denote a group of objects,
animals or people.

Examples:

Collective nouns for groups of animals

A pride of lions

A flock of sheep

A swarm of bees

A herd of elephants

Collective nouns for groups of people

A band of musicians
A board of directors

A crew of sailors

A company of actors

Collective nouns for a number of things/objects

A pair of shoes

A chain of mountains

A fleet of ships

A bunch of grapes

8. Concrete Nouns: A concrete noun refers to objects that are material and can be perceived by the
human senses.

Examples:

The book is on the table.

I had a cup of coffee.

Sharon opened the windows.

Hardy goes to school by bus.

9. Abstract Nouns: Any entity that cannot be perceived by the five senses of the human body are called
an abstract noun.

Examples:

Love is a strong emotion.

Honesty is the best policy.

It takes a lot of courage to raise your voice and stand up against injustice.

You should not misuse the freedom you are given.

What Is a Noun? | Definition, Types & Examples

A noun is a word that represents a person, thing, concept, or place. Most sentences contain at least one
noun or pronoun. For example, the sentences below contain anywhere from one to three nouns.

Nouns vs. pronouns

Like nouns, pronouns can function as the head of a noun phrase and as the subject or object of a verb.
You can have a complete sentence consisting of just a pronoun and a verb (e.g., “He walks.”), just as you
could with a noun (“Jack walks.”).

Unlike nouns, some pronouns (mainly the personal pronouns) change their forms depending on the
grammatical context they’re used in. For example, the first-person pronoun is “I” when it’s used as a
subject and “me” when it’s used as an object, whereas a noun like “dog” would look the same in both
cases.

Common vs. proper nouns

An important distinction is made between two types of nouns, common nouns and proper nouns.

Common nouns are more general. A common noun refers to a class of person, place, thing, or concept,
but not to someone or something specific.

Proper nouns are the names of specific people, places, things, or concepts. They are always capitalized
to distinguish them from common nouns.

Examples: Common and proper nouns

Anya is traveling to France by train.

Of the three children, Lola has the strongest grasp of geometry.

Note

The names of the seasons (“spring,” “summer,” “fall”/”autumn,” and “winter”) are an exception to the
rule of capitalizing proper nouns. They are not capitalized in English, unlike the names of days and
months.

Countable vs. uncountable nouns

Another important distinction is between countable and uncountable nouns:

Countable nouns (also called count nouns) refer to things that can be counted. They can be preceded by
an indefinite article or a number, and they can be pluralized. Most nouns are countable (e.g., “fact(s)” or
“misnomer(s)“).

Uncountable nouns (also called noncount nouns or mass nouns) refer to things that can’t be counted.
They should never be preceded by an indefinite article or a number, and they cannot be pluralized (e.g.,
“information” or “advice“).
A common mistake in English is treating uncountable nouns as if they were countable by pluralizing
them or using an indefinite article. The solution to these problems is usually to rephrase using a related
term or phrase that is countable.

Concrete vs. abstract nouns

A distinction is often made between concrete nouns and abstract nouns.

Concrete nouns refer to physical objects, places, or individuals: things or people that can be observed
with the senses, such as “apple,” “hill,” “zebra,” and “Dorothy.”

Abstract nouns refer to concepts, ideas, feelings, and processes that can’t be physically located, such as
“grammar,” “justice,” “sadness,” and “relaxation.”

There’s no grammatical difference between concrete and abstract nouns—it’s just a distinction that’s
made to point out the different kinds of things nouns can refer to.

Collective nouns

A collective noun is a word used to refer to a group of people or things, such as “team,” “band,” or
“herd.” A collective noun can also be a proper noun—for example, the name of a specific company or
band.

A collective noun may appear to be singular (e.g., “team”) or plural (e.g., “The Beatles”) in form, and
there’s some disagreement about whether they should be treated grammatically as singular or plural.
The following applies for US vs. UK English.