These irregular plural nouns exercises include sentence completion, fill-in-the-blank, and multiple-choice questions to help you practise forming plural nouns correctly. Many English nouns don't follow the standard rule of adding -s or -es to form plurals. I have included a printable worksheet to download for free.
1. Sentence completion exercise
Complete each sentence with the correct plural form of the noun in brackets.
1. Several military (aircraft) flew over the stadium during the opening ceremony.
2. I think these (sheep) are more than two hundred.
3. Marine biologists discovered three new (species) of deep-sea fish near the Pacific trench.
4. How many (fish) did you get?
5. I saw many (deer) yesterday on my way to Port Elizabeth.
6. What are these (child) doing over there?.
7. I am going to buy a cat to chase the (mouse) in this house.
8. Three (spacecraft) were shot down by militia groups last week.
9. I don’t see any cavities in your (tooth).
10. Do you like to eat raw (salmon)?
2. Fill in the blanks
Fill in the blanks with the correct plural form of the noun in parentheses.
1. Many (person) were killed during World War II.
2. My grandfather bought two (bison) yesterday.
3. So many (life) were lost during the World War.
4. Do you know these (man)?
5. (Moose) are the largest species of deer.
6. Are (wolf) wild dogs?.
7. (Elf) are supernatural beings from Germanic folklore.
8. The initial (analysis) were not conclusive.
9. Our model is able to predict the rotation curves of galaxies at very large (radius).
10. We have collected a large sample of (louse) for genetic analyses.
3. Multiple-choice questions
Choose the correct irregular plural nouns.
1. Give me five ______ from the fridge, please.
2. I had to visually classify 5000 ______ during my PhD.
3. My students will submit their ______ by the end of the year.
4. How many ______ of bread do you need?
5. The formation of ______ in the Magellanic Stream is not well understood.
6. Somebody has stolen all my ______ .
7. Can you count these ______ ?
8. Be careful with these ______. They are sharp.
9. You have to solve the two ______ to go to the next level.
10. The police caught the ______ red-handed.
4. Irregular plural nouns worksheet
In this worksheet, you need to write the plural or singular forms of the nouns provided.
5. Answers to the worksheet
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| index | indices | swine | swine |
| phenomenon | phenomena | datum | data |
| die | dice | vortex | vortices |
| alumnus | alumni | axis | axes |
| curriculum | curricula | spectrum | spectra |
| woman | women | penny | pence |
| calf | calves | cactus | cacti |
| louse | lice | criterion | criteria |
| trout | trout | species | species |
If you made mistakes in the exercises, have a look at my lesson on the list of irregular plural nouns in English.