List of Irregular Plurals
Loanwords (eg. mitochondrion) and derived words (eg. woodlouse)
are excluded in these lists.
Specifically, the word must derive directly from an Old English word
(or, in a rare few cases, Old Norse).
Loans are excluded due to triviality.
Umlaut
- brother → brethren
- cow → kye
- foot → feet
- goose → geese
- louse → lice
- man → men
- mouse → mice
- tooth → teeth
These largely derive from Old English consonant stem nouns.
Not all such nouns retained their plurals -
for example, the hypothetical pluralizations
atch ← oak,
beech ← book,
gat ← goat,
nit ← nut, and
tirf ← turf
are unattested.
-en
- bee → been
- child → children
- ey → eyren
- eye → eyen
- hose → hosen
- knee → kneen
- ox → oxen
- pease → peasen
- sister → sistren
- toe → toen
Voicing
- calf → calves
- dwarf → dwarves
- elf → elves
- half → halves
- hoof → hooves
- knife → knives
- leaf → leaves
- life → lives
- loaf → loaves
- roof → rooves
- scarf → scarves
- self → selves
- sheaf → sheaves
- shelf → shelves
- staff → staves
- thief → thieves
- wharf → wharves
- wife → wives
- wolf → wolves
-∅
- craft
- deer
- fish
- gallows
- grouse
- horse
- sheep
- shrimp
- thanks
- trout
Pluralia Tantum
- alms
- clothes
- goods
- odds
- outskirts
- suds
- swine
Misc
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