Plurals of nouns 1

Most nouns make their plurals by simply adding –s to the end (e.g. cat/cats, book/books, journey/journeys). Some do change their endings, though.  The main types of noun that do this are:

 

Nouns ending in -y

 

If the noun ends with a consonant plus -y, make the plural by changing -y to -ies:

 

singular	plural
berry	berries
activity	activities
daisy	daisies

 

Nouns ending in -ch, -s, -sh, -x, or -z

 

If the noun ends with -ch, -s, -sh, -x, or -z, add -es to form the plural:

 

singular	plural
church	churches
bus	buses
fox	foxes

 

There’s one exception to this rule. If the -ch ending is pronounced with a ‘k’ sound, you add -s rather than-es:

 

singular	plural
stomach	stomachs
epoch	epochs