Why is pants a plural word

For example: clothes, goggles, and panties. However, the one place where pants actually are referred to in the singular is in the world of fashion. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Visit Studio Fun International Website. Notify of. Inline Feedbacks. There is a small group of nouns that exist only in the plural form , for example:.

These nouns do not exist in the singular form and are usually described as "plural-only nouns". We use them with plural verbs and plural pronouns , for example:. Many plural-only nouns are tools or items of clothing that have two parts like trousers , which have two legs. Because the above examples have two parts, we can refer to them as "pair of" or "pairs of" to quantify them.

To talk about one item we can say a pair of, one pair of, my pair of, this pair of etc. To specify more than one item we can say two pairs of, three pairs of etc. For example, the plural-only noun glasses means a pair of lenses that we wear to help us see better. This sometimes provokes confusion: a pair of bicycle forks would normally be taken to mean the front fork and the rear fork.

Because, however, each fork is bilaterally symmetrical, it would not be unreasonable to refer to the front pair of forks when describing the front fork. Certainly, the forks on a fork lift truck are plural even though each of them is not individually a fork.

Why do we get our hair cut , instead of get out hairs cut? Yet we brush our teeth, not brush our tooth. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Like this: Like Loading Thank you!! The German words for trousers, underpants and spectacles are: Hose Unterhose Brille All feminine singular.

Yup, I know the feeling!