# Plurale tantum
A **plurale tantum** (Latin for "plural only"; plural *pluralia tantum*) is a noun that is used only in the plural form and has no singular variant for referring to a single object, such as English *scissors*, *trousers*, *clothes*, or *earnings*[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms) • [2](https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/pluralia-tantum/). The term is the counterpart of *singulare tantum*, a noun that occurs only in the singular, such as *dirt* or Latin *aurum* "gold"[3](https://www.thoughtco.com/plurale-tantum-words-1691637) • [4](https://elon.io/grammar/latin/nouns/singularia-tantum-and-pluralia-tantum). The category matters to linguists because in these nouns [grammatical number](https://www.edgepedia.org/grammatical-number), syntactic agreement, and meaning fail to line up in the way a normal plural like *books* lines up: *books* denotes more than one entity, takes plural agreement, and carries a plural marker, while *scissors* can denote a single object yet is grammatically plural throughout[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Definition | A noun that appears only in the plural form and lacks a singular variant for a single object; the plural of the term is *pluralia tantum*[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms) |
| English examples | *scissors*, *trousers*, *pants*, *glasses*, *binoculars*, *clothes*, *earnings*, *oats*[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms) • [5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0) |
| Counting strategy | Countability is expressed with *a pair of*, as in "a pair of scissors" or "two pairs of pants"[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms) |
| Cross-linguistic variation | Russian *binokl'* (binoculars) and French *pantalon* (trousers) are ordinary count nouns, while Russian *sani* "sleigh" is a plurale tantum[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0) |
| Relation to mass nouns | Not all pluralia tantum are mass nouns; mass plurals take plural agreement but resist numeral counting[6](https://academic.oup.com/jos/article/40/2-3/427/7590886) |
| Conceptual basis | The mass–count distinction is argued to be largely conceptually based, with exceptions traceable to competing communicative functions of language[7](https://academic.oup.com/book/32583/chapter-abstract/270388651) |
## Definition and scope
The label comes from Latin *plurale tantum*, literally "plural only"[8](https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-a-plural-tantum.htm). Dictionary definitions differ in an instructive way. One defines *pluralia tantum* simply as nouns that appear only in a plural form, like *oats* or *trousers*[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). Another, from Trask's 1997 dictionary, defines a plurale tantum as "a noun which is plural in form but singular in meaning, such as scissors, pants or binoculars"; the linguist Greville G. Corbett, professor at the Surrey Morphology Group of the [University of Surrey](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-surrey), observes that this definition already stumbles, because *scissors* is not necessarily singular in meaning and can refer to one pair or to several[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0).
The restriction belongs to the lexical entry, not to the plural ending. In [Latin grammar](https://www.edgepedia.org/latin-grammar), number restriction is part of what must be learned with a noun's genitive and gender, and it cannot be predicted from an English translation[4](https://elon.io/grammar/latin/nouns/singularia-tantum-and-pluralia-tantum). The restriction is also lexical rather than absolute: a plural-only noun may acquire a singular in later stages of a language, and a mass noun may develop a specialized plural meaning[4](https://elon.io/grammar/latin/nouns/singularia-tantum-and-pluralia-tantum).
## English examples and behavior
English pluralia tantum fall into recognizable groups. Many denote objects made of two joined parts: *scissors*, *trousers*, *pants*, *glasses*, *binoculars*, *pliers*, *pyjamas*, *tweezers*[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms) • [3](https://www.thoughtco.com/plurale-tantum-words-1691637) • [9](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf). Others are mass-like nouns with plural form, such as *oats*, *riches*, and *remains*[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0) • [10](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/407446/does-english-have-any-singularia-tantum-besides-mass-nouns). Still others, like *clothes*, fit neither group: the hypothetical singular *clothe* has an imaginable meaning, yet it is not a word[10](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/407446/does-english-have-any-singularia-tantum-besides-mass-nouns). Cambridge notes the contrast directly: *clothing* is a mass noun, while *clothes* is a plurale tantum[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms).
**Agreement and counting.** These nouns take plural agreement even for a single object: "These scissors are sharp", not "This scissors is sharp"[11](https://www.englishgrammar.org/some-english-nouns-exist-only-plural/). To count them, English uses the pair construction: "a pair of scissors", "two pairs of pants"[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms). Bare numeral modification is generally not idiomatic in ordinary use, though specialists such as tailors or opticians may say "three trousers" or "5 glasses"[12](https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pluralia-tantum-clothes-news-glasses-scissors-countable-uncountable.3423282/).
**The missing singular is not a morphological accident.** The absence of *pant*, *scissor*, or *trouser* as ordinary singulars cannot be blamed on ill-formed morphology, because compounds like *pant leg*, *trouser leg*, and *scissor blade* are fully grammatical[9](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf). For many pluralia tantum ending in -s, a form without -s does exist but with a different meaning: *arms* means weapons while *arm* means a part of the body[1](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms).
## Cross-linguistic variation
Whether a given concept is a plurale tantum is a property of the individual language, not of the object. *Scissors* is a plurale tantum in English but not in Swedish, where *en sax* means "a scissor"[8](https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-a-plural-tantum.htm). Russian has *binokl'* with a full singular and plural, unlike English *binoculars*; conversely, Russian *sani* "sleigh" is a plurale tantum where the English equivalent is an ordinary count noun[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). Many English nouns denoting items of two significant parts, such as *bicycle* or *Bactrian camel*, are unremarkable in number behavior, so the two-part meaning alone does not force plural-only status[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0).
Classical languages supply the traditional examples. Latin *divitiae* "wealth", *nuptiae* "wedding", and *tenebrae* "darkness", and the city names *Athenae* and *Thebae*, are used only in the plural; Italian extends the pattern with *nozze* "wedding"[2](https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/pluralia-tantum/). Danish *penge* "money" is cited as a plurale tantum in Danish reference works[13](https://lex.dk/plurale_tantum).
**Substances can be plural-only too.** The noun for "water" is plural in several languages: Sanskrit *āpas* ("almost always plural"), Hebrew *mayim* (formally a *duale tantum*, a dual-only noun), Akkadian *mû*, Swahili *maji*, Turkana *a-kipì*, Rendille *bicé*, and Somali *biyyó*[9](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf). Cicipu, a Benue-Congo language spoken in northwestern Nigeria by roughly 20,000 people as of 1995, contains a single plurale tantum noun.[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0)
## Relation to mass nouns and countability
Pluralia tantum and mass nouns are distinct categories that overlap only partly. Mass plurals, a class going back to Jespersen, are nouns that take plural agreement like count nouns but cannot be modified or counted by numeral modifiers; a proper plurale tantum such as *clothes* or *belongings* exists only in the plural (*a clothe, *a belonging are impossible)[6](https://academic.oup.com/jos/article/40/2-3/427/7590886). The key point from that literature is that not all pluralia tantum are mass nouns[6](https://academic.oup.com/jos/article/40/2-3/427/7590886).
On the conceptual side, Edward J. Wisniewski, a psycholinguist at the [University of North Carolina](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-north-carolina) at Greensboro, argues in a chapter of *Kinds, Things, and Stuff* (Oxford, 2009) against two extreme views, one that the mass–count distinction is semantically unprincipled and one that it rests on a single deep conceptual difference; his position is that the distinction is to a very large degree conceptually based, with exceptions caused by competing communicative functions of language[7](https://academic.oup.com/book/32583/chapter-abstract/270388651). Paolo Acquaviva, whose 2008 monograph *Lexical Plurals* treats pluralia tantum as lexical plurals whose only distinctive property is the lack of a singular, concludes that they cannot serve as the grammatical definition of the broader lexical-plural class[9](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf).
## Psycholinguistics and typology
Pluralia tantum create a conflict between grammatical and conceptual number that shows up in sentence production. In "He put his glasses on", the word *glasses* most likely refers to a single pair despite being grammatically plural; elicited agreement-error studies indicate that a noun's grammatical number specification can be stronger than its conceptual number in computing subject–verb agreement[14](https://akjournals.com/downloadpdf/journals/2062/65/2-3/article-p259.pdf).
**A canonical typology.** Corbett's 2019 study in the journal *Morphology* sets out a full typology using Canonical Typology, which identifies the dimensions of cross-linguistic variation and calibrates attested nouns against logical endpoints[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). On the inflectional criterion, pluralia tantum nouns have only the plural sub-paradigm available, whether that sub-paradigm consists of one cell or more; for count nouns, the mismatch between semantic countability and the missing non-plural forms leads either to defectiveness or to special strategies, notably constructions with numerals[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). Russian illustrates the calibration problem: the nominative plural form *sani* "sledge" could in principle be genitive singular, but the full set of forms is clearly plural and rules that reading out[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). Russian also shows a numeral strategy with plural agreement, *odni sani* "one.PL sledge.PL"[9](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf).
The distribution of count and non-count nouns across languages is constrained by the Animacy Hierarchy, which runs from speaker and addressee pronouns through kin, human, and animate nouns to inanimates[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0). Acquaviva's later overview of pluralia and singularia tantum finds semantically based clusters pointing to semantic motivation behind cross-linguistically recurring notions, and a partial asymmetry between the two classes related to the greater predictability of the singular for mass nouns[15](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119693604.morphcom065). Research on the phenomenon has also been extended to sign languages[5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0).
## References
1. [Plurale tantum definition, Cambridge English Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurale-tantum?topic=grammatical-terms)
2. [Pluralia tantum, Vocabolario Treccani](https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/pluralia-tantum/)
3. [Plurale Tantum in English Grammar, Richard Nordquist, ThoughtCo](https://www.thoughtco.com/plurale-tantum-words-1691637)
4. [Singularia Tantum and Pluralia Tantum, Latin Grammar, Elon.io](https://elon.io/grammar/latin/nouns/singularia-tantum-and-pluralia-tantum)
5. [Corbett, G. G. (2019). Pluralia tantum nouns and the theory of features. Morphology 29, 51–108](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-018-9336-0)
6. [Quelques in French: a Clustered Plural, Journal of Semantics 40 (2023)](https://academic.oup.com/jos/article/40/2-3/427/7590886)
7. [Wisniewski, E. J. (2009). On Using Count Nouns, Mass Nouns, and Pluralia Tantum: What Counts? In Kinds, Things, and Stuff, Oxford University Press](https://academic.oup.com/book/32583/chapter-abstract/270388651)
8. [What Is a Plural Tantum? Language Humanities](https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-a-plural-tantum.htm)
9. [Acquaviva, P. (2008). Lexical Plurals: A Morphosemantic Approach, Oxford University Press](https://faculty.georgetown.edu/rtk8/Acquaviva%202008%20lexical%20plurals.pdf)
10. [Does English have any singularia tantum besides mass nouns? English Language & Usage Stack Exchange](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/407446/does-english-have-any-singularia-tantum-besides-mass-nouns)
11. [Why some English nouns exist only in the plural, EnglishGrammar.org](https://www.englishgrammar.org/some-english-nouns-exist-only-plural/)
12. [Pluralia Tantum: clothes, news, glasses, scissors, WordReference Forums](https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pluralia-tantum-clothes-news-glasses-scissors-countable-uncountable.3423282/)
13. [Plurale tantum, Lex.dk, Den Store Danske](https://lex.dk/plurale_tantum)
14. [Acta Linguistica Academica 65 (2018) 259–291](https://akjournals.com/downloadpdf/journals/2062/65/2-3/article-p259.pdf)
15. [Acquaviva, P. Pluralia tantum and singularia tantum, Wiley Morphology Compass entry](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119693604.morphcom065)
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