Spelling Rules for Adding S or ES to Nouns

Spelling Rules for Adding S or ES to Nouns

Rules for making plural nouns from singular nouns

Generally, we add ‘S’ to the noun to make its plural form.

Singular	Plural
car	cars
house	houses
book	books
bird	birds
pencil	pencils

However:

1. If a noun ends in S, SH, CH, X, or Z*, then we add ‘es’ to the noun.

Singular	Plural
kiss	kisses
wish	wishes
match	matches
fox	foxes
quiz	quizzes*

• I have a box in my bedroom.
• I have three boxes in my bedroom.

* With words that end in ‘Z’ sometimes we add an extra ‘Z’ to make the plural form of the word. (Such as with the plural of the word 'quiz').

2. If a noun ends in a VOWEL + Y, we add ‘S’ to the noun to make its plural form.

Singular	Plural
boy	boys
holiday	holidays
key	keys
guy	guys

•  Ali is a good boy.
• Ali and Aslam are good boys.

3. If a noun ends in a CONSONANT + Y, we change ‘Y’ into I and add ‘es’ to the noun.

Singular	Plural
party	parties
lady	ladies
story	stories
nanny	nannies
city	cities

•  I visited a historic city last month.
• I have visited so many cities so far.

4. If a noun ends in ‘F’ or ‘FE’, we change ‘F’ or ‘EF’ into ‘V’ and add ‘es’ to the noun.

Singular	Plural
life	lives
leaf	leaves
thief	thieves
wife	wives

• John has a beautiful wife.
• Tom has three wives.

There are some exceptions: roof - roofs, cliff - cliffs, chief - chiefs, belief - beliefs, chef - chefs

 

5. If a noun ends in a CONSONANT + O, we add ‘es’ to the noun.

Singular	Plural
tomato	tomatoes
potato	potatoes
echo	echoes
hero	heroes

• There was one hero who performed well.
• I have never seen two heroes in one movie.

We have some exceptions like  piano/pianos, halo/halos, photo/photos

NOTE: Volcano has two correct forms of plural. Both volcanos and volcanoes are accepted.

6. There are a number of irregular nouns that don’t follow these rules. You need to memorize them because they don’t have 'S' at the end.

Singular	Plural
man	men
woman	women
child	children
foot	feet
tooth	teeth
goose	geese
mouse	mice

• There is a child in the park.
• There are many children in the park.

7. There are some nouns in English that are the same in the singular and the plural.

Singular	Plural
fish	fish
sheep	sheep
deer	deer
moose	moose
aircraft	aircraft

• You can see a sheep in the field.
• You can see ten sheep in the field.

 8. When a noun ends in ‘IS’, we change it to ‘ES’. These Words usually have a Greek root.

Singular	Plural
analysis	analyses
basis	bases
crisis	crises

•  We will be in crisis financially.
• We faced different political crises.

9. If a noun ends in ‘US’, we change it to ‘I’. These Words usually have a Latin root.

Singular	Plural
cactus	cacti
fungus	fungi
stimulus	stimuli
syllabus	syllabi

• We designed a new syllabus for the upcoming year.
• We compared so many syllabi to design a new syllabus.

Some exceptions: octopus - octopuses (because it is from Greek, not Latin), walrus - walruses