Irregular Plurals or Irregular Plural Noun List

Irregular Plurals or Irregular Plural Noun List, based on the names itself, these are different from regular plural nouns. All the basic details along with the list are captured in this session so that it can be remembered easily. Let’s explore!

Irregular Plurals

Basic of Irregular Plurals

Irregular plurals or irregular plural nouns, as the name suggests, are different from regular plural nouns. These plurals do not have any rules. We have already learned, adding ‘s’ or ‘es’ at the end of a singular noun to make it plural.

But what about if we consider man or deer or child and try to change into plural nouns?

Can we add ‘s’ or ‘es’ here?

Will these be changed like, 

• a man to mans?
• or deer to deers?
• or child to childs? 

No! These are not correct plurals in English.

In English Grammar, we say,

• Man to men
• Deer to deer
• Child to children

So, there are no rules here and these kinds of nouns are irregular plurals and we will learn more than 100 irregular plural nouns here.

What are Irregular Plural Nouns?

The plural nouns which are not obeying any rules like regular plurals are called irregular plurals or irregular plural nouns. Sometimes, these are called unusual plurals, due to its unusual behavior.

Irregular plural nouns do not become plural by adding ‘s’ or ‘es’, or any other rules. 

Example of Irregular Plurals

There are thousands of irregular plural nouns in English Grammar. Let us take two examples,

• aircraft
• bison

In the case of aircraft or bison, plurals are aircraft and bison respectively instead of aircrafts or bisons. So, no change here.

Irregular plurals

How to remember the irregular plural nouns list?

So, it is very normal to ask that if there are no rules, how can we remember thousands of irregular plural nouns? It is simple, we have to practice. So, remember to,

• Read
• Write
• Speak
• Practice

We have captured more than 100 irregular plural nouns widely used in our daily life. I hope, we can learn the most important irregular plurals.

However, we have developed a few tricks as rules so that it will be easy to remember. Before going to the list, we will learn the rules.

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Rules of Irregular Plural Nouns

Rule#1 There are few singular nouns, which is not change anything when it is changed into plural nouns.

Rule#2 There are few singular nouns, where many letters are changed or the entire letters are modified when it is to be made plural forms.

Rule#3 Some nouns are always singular. They have no plural form.

In the case of many uncountable nouns, the singular form is used to refer to the entire quantity rather than one, two, or more countable items.

• flour
• gold
• silver
• sugar
• water

Rule#4 Some nouns have no singular form. These nouns are always plural.

• jeans
• binoculars
• cards
• games
• clippers
• darts
• gymnastics
• diseases
• dominoes
• ethics
• glasses
• linguistics
• mathematics
• economics
• measles
• trousers
• physics
• pants
• police
• rabies
• robbers
• politics
• scissors
• shorts

Rule#5 There are few nouns that have an identical form of singular and plural nouns and both end with ‘s’.

• barracks,
• crossroads,
• headquarters,
• means,
• species

Rule#6 Some nouns are used with modifiers. If that is the case, change the noun, not the modifiers. In a hyphenated compound word, you must change the first word into plural form.

Rule#7 Some nouns may have two different kinds of plural.

Fish has two plurals.

• Fish
• Fishes

Fish (General Purpose)

• Normally we use the plural noun fish.
• Example – I have caught a few fish. Here, few fish mean more than one but the plural noun ‘fish’ is used.

Fishes (it refers to individual fish)

• She loves aquarium and she has given different names to different fishes. Here, many fishes as all fishes are named individually.

Rule#8 Certain plural nouns are used as a singular.

Example,

• Mathematics
• News
• Luggage
• Politics

Sentence example,

• Mathematics is not a difficult subject if you understand properly.
• The news is really very encouraging for the youth.

Rule#9 Collective nouns are usually singular, even though they might sound plural.

For example,

• Ambush
• Flock
• Herd
• Bunch

In the above, although ambush, flock, herd, bunch, etc. refer to the group but acts as a single item.

Rule#10 Non-countable nouns do not have plural forms.

For example,

• Water
• Soup
• Ketch-up
• Sugar

Sentence examples,

• Water is deep. Here, water used as a singular noun.

Rule#11 Few nouns ending with ‘s’ only have a plural form when it has a certain meaning.

• Customs (it means customs services at the airport),
• Goods (things or merchandise, not the opposite of bad),
• Arms (it refers to weapons here instead of limb)

So, we have learned basic tricks to remember irregular plural nouns, lets check the list of 100 irregular plurals.

100 Irregular Plural Nouns List

We have made a list of more than 100 examples of irregular based on our daily uses. This list is provided with a remark so that we can remember easily.

Let’s explore, 100 irregular plural nouns list.

Irregular plural nouns list three

Irregular plural nouns list four

Conclusion

So, we have learned a big list, around 100 irregular plural nouns which we use in our daily life. If you have any doubt please feel free to write to us.

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