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The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, kine. The Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is kye.
The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for various attributions: women killers are women who kill, whereas woman killers are those who kill women. The singular and plural forms of loanwords from other languages where countable nouns used attributively are, unlike English, plural and come at the end of the word are sometimes ...
"Calf" is the term used from birth to weaning, when it becomes known as a weaner or weaner calf, though in some areas the term "calf" may be used until the animal is a yearling. The birth of a calf is known as calving. A calf that has lost its mother is an orphan calf, also known as a poddy or poddy-calf in British.
The French terminations -ois / -ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding e (-oise / -aise) makes them singular feminine; es (-oises / -aises) makes them plural feminine. The Spanish and Portuguese termination -o usually denotes the masculine , and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the -o and adding -a .
Examples of Italian diminutive words used in English are mostly culinary, like spaghetti (plural diminutive of "spago", meaning "thin string" or "twine"), linguine (named for its resemblance to little tongues ("lingue", in Italian)), bruschetta and zucchini.
In American English (AmE), collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: the team takes their seats, rather than the team takes its seats.
Calf (pl.: calves) most often refers to: Calf (animal) , the young of domestic cattle. Calf (leg) , in humans (and other primates), the back portion of the lower leg
Some languages may possess a massive plural and a numerative plural, the first implying a large mass and the second implying division (like the English modifer "respective[ly]"). For example, "the [combined] waters of the Atlantic Ocean" versus, "the waters of [each of] the Great Lakes [respectively]".