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The plural (sometimes abbreviated as pl., pl, or PL), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number.The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun.
Although the everyday meaning of plural is "more than one", the grammatical term has a slightly different technical meaning. In the English system of grammatical number, singular means "one (or minus one)", and plural means "not singular". In other words, plural means not just "more than one" but also "less than one (except minus one)".
In languages with a singular/dual/plural paradigm, the exact meaning of plural depends on whether the dual is obligatory or facultative (optional). [16] In contrast to English and other singular/plural languages where plural means two or more, in languages with an obligatory dual, plural strictly means three or more.
Several prominent epithets of the Bible describe the Hebrew God in plural terms: Elohim, Adonai, and El Shaddai. Many Christian scholars, including the post-apostolic leaders and Augustine of Hippo, have seen the use of the plural and grammatically singular verb forms as support for the doctrine of the Trinity. [6]
Thus words like ʿēnạyim only appear to be dual, but are in fact what is called "pseudo-dual", which is a way of making a plural. Sometimes, words can change meaning depending on whether the dual or plural form is used, for example; ʿayin can mean eye or water spring in the singular, but in the plural eyes will take the dual form of ...
There are many exceptions, some because the word does not derive from Latin, and others due to custom (e.g., campus, plural campuses). Conversely, some non-Latin words ending in -us and Latin words that did not have their Latin plurals with -i form their English plurals with -i , e.g. , octopi is sometimes used as a plural for octopus (the ...
In English, the problem of gender determination does not arise in the plural, because gender in that language is reflected only in pronouns, and the plural pronoun they does not have gendered forms. In the singular, however, the issue frequently arises when a person of unspecified or unknown gender is being referred to.
The terms womyn and womxn have been criticized for being unnecessary or confusing neologisms, due to the uncommonness of mxn to describe men. [8] [9] [10]The word womyn has been criticized by transgender people [11] [12] due to its usage in trans-exclusionary radical feminist circles which exclude trans women from identifying into the category of "woman", particularly the term womyn-born womyn.