Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To make plural.
- intransitive verb Grammar To express in the plural.
- intransitive verb To become plural.
- intransitive verb Ecclesiastical To hold more than one position or benefice at one time.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make plural by using the termination of the plural number; attribute plurality to; express in the plural form.
- Eccles., to hold two or more benefices at the same time. Also spelled
pluralise .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To make plural by using the plural termination; to attribute plurality to; to express in the plural form.
- transitive verb rare To multiply; to make manifold.
- intransitive verb To take a plural; to assume a plural form.
- intransitive verb (Eccl.), engraving To hold more than one benefice at the same time.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To make
plural . - verb intransitive To take a plural; to assume a plural form.
- verb intransitive, UK To hold more than one
ecclesiastical benefice at the same time.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb mark with a grammatical morpheme that indicates plural
Etymologies
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Examples
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"Of us" is a prepositional phrase and therefore "us," though referring to many instead of one, cannot pluralize the verb form.
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According to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, there is one case when it's permissable to use an apostrophe to pluralize something.
Archive 2009-01-04 Tyler 2009
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For the record, it's also not correct to use apostrophes to pluralize decades.
Apostrophe Castastrophe Tyler 2009
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IFOT speculates that the source of the problem is that our general culture still valorizes a Romantic model of artistic production that equates the text (or song, etc) with the author's own feelings and is very resistant to models of aesthetic signification that complicate or pluralize the possible meanings in a text.
Literary Study 2009
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Car owners, marketers, and automotive writers have been confounded as to the proper way to pluralize Toyota Prius since the first-generation sedan helped introduce hybrid cars to the mainstream, beginning with the 2001 model year in the United States.
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For the record, it's also not correct to use apostrophes to pluralize decades.
Archive 2009-01-04 Tyler 2009
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(I would also comment that I have NEVER seen anyone use an apostrophe to pluralize denominations of bills.)
Singular “they” and the many reasons why it’s correct « Motivated Grammar 2009
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According to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, there is one case when it's permissable to use an apostrophe to pluralize something.
Apostrophe Castastrophe Tyler 2009
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In the past, we have avoided referring to the Toyota Prius in the plural, as there was no comfortable way to pluralize the car name.
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My biggest beef, though, is with the erroneous use of apostrophes to pluralize acronyms and abbreviations like CEOs, GIs, and CDs.
Arianna Huffington: Arianna's Grammar Pet Peeve: The Apostrophe Crisis 2010
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