Editing English plurals (section)

==== Plurals in ''-(e)n'' ====
The plurals of a few nouns are formed from the singular by adding ''-n'' or ''-en'', stemming from the Old English weak declension. Only the following three are commonly found:
{{block indent|{{wikitable
|ox||oxen||(particularly when referring to a team of draft (draught) animals, sometimes ''oxes'' in nonstandard [[American English]]){{citation needed|date=November 2023}}
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|child||children||(only possible plural; originated as a [[double plural]], with ''-en'' added to [[Old English]] plural ''cildra/cildru'', which also led to the archaic plural ''childer'' as in ''[[Childermas]]'', occasionally still encountered in Ireland).
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|brother||brethren||(archaic as plural of ''brother'' meaning a male sibling, but often seen as plural of ''brother'' meaning a member of a [[religious congregation]] or [[fraternal organization]];<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brethren Dictionary.com entry for "brother"].</ref> originated as a [[double plural]], with ''-en'' added to [[Early Middle English]] ''brother'')
}}}}
As noted, the word "children" comes from an earlier form "childer". There were formerly a few other words like this: eyre/eyren (eggs), lamber/lambren (lambs), and calver/calveren (calves).

An interesting example may be found embedded in the name of the London parish of [[Clerkenwell]], which derives its name from being the Clerks' Well associated with the [[Clerkenwell Priory]] of the [[Knights Hospitaller]].

The following ''-(e)n'' plurals are found in dialectal, rare, or archaic usage:

{{block indent|{{wikitable
|bee||been|| (dialectal, Ireland)
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|cow||kine||(archaic/regional; actually earlier plural "kye" [cf. Scots "kye"—"cows"] plus ''-en'' suffix, forming a [[double plural]])
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|eye||eyen||(rare, found in some regional dialects, used by [[Shakespeare]])
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|shoe||shoon||(rare/dialectal)
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|house||housen||(rare/dialectal, used by [[Rudyard Kipling]] in ''[[Puck of Pook's Hill]]'')
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|hose||hosen||(rare/archaic, used in [[King James Version]] of the Bible)
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|knee||kneen||(archaic/obsolete)
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|tree||treen||(archaic/obsolete, used by [[William Browne (poet)|William Browne]])
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|aurochs||aurochsen||(alternative plural, also ''aurochs'')
}}}}

The word ''box'', referring to a computer, is sometimes pluralized humorously to ''boxen'' in [[Hacker culture|hacker subculture]], by analogy to ''oxen''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=boxen |url=http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/boxen.html |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=catb.org}}</ref> In the same context, multiple [[VAX]] computers are sometimes called ''Vaxen,'' particularly if operating as a cluster. Multiple Unix systems are sometimes referred to as ''Unix boxen,'' or may be called ''Unices'' along the [[#Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek|Latin model]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Raymond|first=Eric|title=The New Hacker's Dictionary|year=1993|chapter=How Jargon Works|quote=But note that 'Unixen' and 'Twenexen' are never used. It has been suggested that this is because '-ix' and '-ex' are sometimes Latin singular endings that attract a Latinate plural.|page=12|bibcode=1993nhsd.book.....R}}</ref>