Are words like "scissors" plural?

Question

I never hear "scissor" or "pant" or "jean". It's always "scissors", "pants", and "jeans", respectively. Are they considered plural?

It is probably a relic from the days when pants and leggings did not cover the butt and pelvis, and so came in pairs, one for each leg. We do have "a scissor kick". — TimR, Dec 03 '14 at 14:33
(Pair of) Underwear, underpants, and panties always gets my boxers in a bunch. — SrJoven, Dec 03 '14 at 14:52
Well, pant is definitely a word. What's the word to describe half of a scissors? Like if one half broke off — Huangism, Dec 03 '14 at 18:25
Poor choice of dupe. Linked question asks for definition of "scissor" and "trouser" and the answer gives it for those two specific words. This question asks if words like this are plural, which is not asked by the dupe question or addressed by the dupe answers at all... — Jason C, Dec 04 '14 at 06:02

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

5

Yes, these words only have a plural form and require the verb in the plural. A list of such words would be very long and, to mention just a few:

glasses (spectacles)

trousers

binoculars

tweezers

pajamas, pyjamas

knickers

clothes

belongings

but beware of "maths" and "aerobics" which are always singular.

For a complete list, follow the links:

nouns which are always plural in form

nouns that only have a plural form

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

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answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:50

Centaurus

50,047

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Your warning about maths and aerobics is incorrect. Maths is a perfectly valid word. It is a regional distinction, like flavor/flavour. And aerobics is just a shortening of "aerobic exercises." – Darrick Herwehe Dec 03 '14 at 15:24
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The OP was about "words" not just "nouns", the singulars are often used as adjectives, e.g. "scissor lift", "pant leg", "binocular lens", "I have a tweezer drawer that I keep my tweezers in", etc. Some still don't use the singular in adjective form, though, e.g. you'll never find a "clothe" anything. – Jason C Dec 03 '14 at 15:49
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The singular is often used in verb form as well, e.g. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scissor, "to scissor something". I am not sure that the assertion that the plural verb is required is correct, either, e.g. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scissor although I cannot think of an example. – Jason C Dec 03 '14 at 15:56
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@Darrick Herwehe I think Centaurus's warning about maths and aerobics is not about the math/maths regional variation, but refers to the fact that these words are always treated as singular in spite of looking like plurals. I (a Brit, if you can't tell) would say "Maths is my favourite subject", but never "Maths are my favourite subject". – Nefrubyr Dec 03 '14 at 16:06
@JasonC "Clothe" is a perfectly normal and common verb - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=clothe – Dec 03 '14 at 17:44
@AnonymousMonkey I was describing adjectives in that comment. I thought "you'll never find a 'clothe' anything" pretty clearly did not refer to a verb. Verbs are in the following comment. – Jason C Dec 03 '14 at 18:48
@Nefrubyr That's possible, but I read it as "absolutely, never, never are these ok." I just wanted to make sure anyone else who came across this didn't take it that way. – Darrick Herwehe Dec 03 '14 at 18:56
-1 you can find judicious instances of scissor in Google Books. – Arm the good guys in America Jul 15 '17 at 23:34

Misti · Answer 2 · 2014-12-03T16:27:39.517

5

They are termed as duals : denoting a form of a word indicating that exactly two referents are being referred to.

Consider these : trousers, panties, glasses, binoculars, both, couple, legs, arms, feet, youse, pair etc.

The singular form is commonly used in compound words such as: scissor-hands, spectacle-case etc.

Scissor used in the singular as a verb may not be grammatically wrong.

edited Dec 03 '14 at 16:27

answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:58

Misti

13,774

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Is "scissor-hands" really commonly used? Before Edward Scissorhands I mean? – Xen2050 Dec 03 '14 at 15:01
@Araucaria, good you brought it up. I referred to the dual markers. Legs, arms, feet and twins are things that occur in pairs and couples. – Misti Dec 03 '14 at 16:50
@MystiSinha but legs don't only occur in twos! neither do feet! :) – Araucaria - Him Dec 03 '14 at 18:16
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@Araucaria On normal humans they do. – Jason C Dec 04 '14 at 06:03

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:51

3

Words like "jeans", "scissors", "pants" are non-count nouns. Anything that you cannot buy as a single item (I'd like to buy 1 pant, please) or items that can only be counted in terms of "X's of Y" (pairs of pants/bottles of milk/grains of sand) are non-count.

They don't truly exist as singular or plural. However, we generally use plural verbs with them. "My pants are torn" not "My pants is torn."

answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:51

miltonaut

2,097

I fully agree, but can you add a decent authority that backs this up? (CGEL requires a count-noun [usage] to accept a numeral, for instance.) – Edwin Ashworth Feb 16 '17 at 16:11
And note that 'separates' is also always plural-form, never count. But whereas 'I've spilt ketchup on my jeans / pants / tights' almost always refers to a single referent (garment), 'Separates are upstairs, madam' never does. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 22 '21 at 15:48

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 03 '14 at 15:04

Yes, they're plural as Centaurus says. You would say "pass me those binoculars", never "pass me that binoculars"* or "pass me that binocular"*. But as Xen2050 points out, many of those can be used with the classifier "pair" ("A pair of binoculars", "a pair of knickers") in which case the head of the noun phrase is the singular "pair", making the entire noun phrase singular.

Beware of a couple of alternative meanings, though. Centaurus has already flagged "glasses" as only always being plural when it refers to the things you wear in front of your eyes - the type of glass one drinks from behaves "normally" as a known. I avoided using "spectacles" in the clarification, though, because that too has another meaning (noteworthy sights) that can be singular. Similarly, "knicker" is (somewhat archaic) British slang for a pound, and as far as I can tell stays the same in singular and plural.

So it is. But the stone used in some children's games is spelled "knicker", so there is still a word with that spelling. — digitig, Dec 05 '14 at 13:48

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 09 '14 at 15:26

English has a lot of particularities as to numerus (singular and plural). One group of plural nouns are things that consist of two parts. In English grammars these nouns are often called "pair nouns". Such nouns are

trousers, shorts, pyjamas, braces

scissors, tongs, spectacles, glasses, compasses

lungs

Verbs after these nouns have plural form and when referring to one object you use "a pair of" as in a pair of trousers.

I would not mix these pair nouns with other nouns used in plural form as clothes, belongings etc.

The Oxford Guide to English Grammar has pair nouns in paragraph 155. In other languages these pair nouns in plural form may correspond to a noun in singular as in German Schere (singular) for scissors.

score -1 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:30

-1

I think they are plural, sort of, so far as they each have two (nearly identical) pieces (each leg, scissor blade/side) so they're like a set. A pair of pants/jeans, or scissors.

Maybe someone knows the history of the words? Were pants worn one leg at a time, separately, somewhere in the past?

answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:30

Xen2050

181

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Actually, yes, in different time periods. Plate armor came in separate pieces for different sides of the body. And at one time, jacket sleeves basically had to be sewn on every day. We wear "pairs of glasses" because we first had "monocles". – miltonaut Dec 03 '14 at 14:45

score -2 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:39

-2

Yes, the above mentioned words are plural. If you mean 'a pair of scissors' than rules for singular nouns apply.

answered Dec 03 '14 at 14:39

user99937

1

Are words like "scissors" plural?

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