Les Jones: Word of the Day: Plurale Tantum

January 18, 2007

Word of the Day > Word of the Day: Plurale Tantum

A plurale tantum (plural: pluralia tantum) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant, though it may still refer to one or many of the object it names. Many languages have pluralia tantum, such as the English words "scissors" and "pants".

The converse term, for a noun which appears only in the singular, is singulare tantum (plural: singularia tantum), for example the English word "dust".

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Comments

What about words denoting nationality? Such as Scotch? Is this the singular variety?

Posted by: Teddy at January 18, 2007

I had a guy from Scotland tell me that he was Scottish, not Scotch, because he was a person and not a whiskely. :-)

A plurale tantum is always a noun. So if you used it in the context of "I am Scottish" I guess maybe it could be a plurale tantum, but there may be other rules that come into play.

Posted by: Les Jones at January 18, 2007

This doesn't explain why she wears a pair of panties but only one bra.

Posted by: triticale at January 18, 2007