irregular plurals
Non-standard noun forms
Irregular plurals are noun forms that don't follow standard pluralization rules.
English typically adds -s or -es, but irregular plurals change the word internally (foot/feet, mouse/mice, child/children) or retain foreign plural endings (criterion/criteria, phenomenon/phenomena).
Some nouns remain unchanged: one sheep, two sheep.
Others survive from Old English or Latin patterns that resisted standardization.
- miceSmall gnawing mammals
- geesePlural of goose
- childrenYoung human beings
- men and womenAdult humans collectively
- teethEnamel-covered chewing structures
feet · oxen · one fish two fish · cacti · fungi · phenomena · criteria · data points · octopi · sheep · deer · fish · alumni · syllabi · formulae · indices · vertices · appendices
- noun grammarnoun, noun phrase, case, declension, noun clause
- pluralsmen, women, feet, mice, geese
- vowel changeablaut, umlaut
- vowel changesablaut, umlaut, vowel lengthening, Great Vowel Shift, monophthongization
irregular, irregulars, irregularly, irregularity, irregularities, regular, regularly, regularity, regulate