Plurals can be both the first grammar that language learners study in English and a continuing source of confusion years later with points like “two fish” and “mediums/ media”. There is already an article on this site called How to Teach Irregular Plurals, so this article mainly concentrates on regular plurals. However, almost all of the teaching ideas would also work with a mix of regular and irregular plurals.
What students need to know about English plurals
When I first started planning this article, I assumed I would write first about how to form English plurals. However, when I started making a list of the most useful plurals at each level (see below) it was striking how few useful ones for lower levels there are which don’t just take -s. I shouldn’t have been surprised given that my students only occasionally make mistakes with making plurals, and much more commonly use the singular when a plural is needed. Students therefore first of all need to learn when to use plural forms, preferably doing to first of all with some familiar nouns which they already know how to make the plural of. Common collocations with plural nouns which are useful even for low level learners include:
- Numbers (“Two…”, etc) and similar expressions (“a couple of”, “a few”, “some “, “a lot of”, etc)
- “How many…?”
- “They are…”
- “These/ Those are…”
- “There are (some/ a few/ several/ two/ a couple of/ -n’t any/ no)…”
- “I like…”
- Present Simple verbs without third person S (“The… have…”, etc)
Those are also all good points to teach with, just before or just after plural nouns.
Those collocations with plural nouns can be contrasted with similar forms which need singular nouns, such as:
- “It is…”
- “This/ That is…”
- “(There is/ I have/ Would you like/ Can I have) a/ an/ one…”
- Present Simple verbs with third person S (“The… wears…”, etc)
After some practice putting the singular or basic “…s” form plurals into the right places in such phrases, students are probably ready to do the same with slightly more difficult regular plurals. The other regular endings are “-es” (as in “passes”) and “-ies” (“parties”, etc), of which the priority is probably teaching “-es”. When “-es” is added to a noun, it is pronounced “iz” (like the verb “is”). This happens after sounds which are similar to “s” such as “sh”, “ch”, “z” and “j”, presumably due to the difficulty or impossibility of pronouncing “-s” directly after those sounds without an extra sound in between. For example, pronouncing “hutchs” as one syllable with the “s” sound directly after “ch” is almost impossible, and clearly “passs” would sound exactly the same as “pass” (because length of consonant doesn’t matter in English). Due to the vowel sound in “iz”, these kinds of “-es” endings add one syllable to the word (unlike the other regular endings “-s” and “-ies”). For example, if we look at the plurals of the one-syllable words “head”, “fly” and “glass”, “heads” and “flies” still have one syllable, but “glasses” has two syllables. Both this added syllable and the kinds of sounds “-es” is added to are exactly the same as the rules for adding “-es” endings to Present Simple verbs like “He preaches…” and “It passes…”, so “-es” endings with plurals could be taught with, before or after that point.
Something that I hadn’t noticed until making the lists of useful plurals below is how many of the most useful words with “-iz” endings and an added syllable actually already end in “-e” and so only have “-s” added, as in “cases” and “colleges”. This means that the spelling of the plural affix gives no clue as to the pronunciation, as there are also plenty of words ending in “-e” that therefore have “-es” endings in the plural when an “-s” is added but don’t need an extra syllable such as “eyes” and “games”.
“-es” is also added to some words ending in “-o” such as “tomatoes”, but this doesn’t change the pronunciation, even native speakers make mistakes with it and many that can end in “-oes” are also correct with “-os”, so I wouldn’t spend much or any class time on this pattern.
“-ies” endings are much easier but less important than “-es” endings, as they are simply a spelling change with words that end in “-y” such as “flies” and “ponies”. The main difficulty for students is nouns which end in “-y” but don’t follow this rule, namely ones with a vowel sound before “-y” like “plays” and “boys”.
After mastering “-s”, “-es” and “-ies”, students should then be ready to be introduced to irregular plurals. There are few important irregular plurals at low levels and most of those don’t follow any particular rule (as with “children” and “people”). Therefore to start with it is probably enough to tell students that some plurals don’t follow the regular rules and need to be learnt one by one just as they would learn other irregular forms such as irregular comparative adjectives (“better”, etc) and irregular past participles (“been”, etc).
Higher level learners should be able to work out patterns such as words ending with “-f” often (but not always) taking “-ves”. These rules and ideas for how to teach them are given in the article How to Teach Irregular Plurals on this site.
Kind of on the cusp between regular and irregular plurals (but trickier and less important than either) is plurals of longer expressions like “brothers-in-law”, “passers-by” and “postmen”.
Something else that will come up very early but probably won’t need actual teaching until somewhat later is words which are always plural in English and so need plural forms of the verb as in “The trousers/ scissors/ headquarters are…” Students might need help distinguishing these from singular and uncountable nouns that end in “-s” which need third person S like “The news is bad”.
If you have previously taught plurals with the help of textbooks or pronunciation books, you are probably surprised that I haven’t yet mentioned that final “-s” can be pronounced either “s” or “z” depending on whether it follows an unvoiced sound (“cap”/ “caps”) or voiced sound (“cab”/ “cabs” and “tree”/ “trees”). The reason for this getting such a late mention in this article is that I think actively teaching “s/ z” endings is a complete waste of time. This is because students can usually pick it up naturally (as it is more difficult to pronounce “s” after a voiced sound and “z” after an unvoiced sound), misunderstandings due to getting it wrong or mishearing it are extremely unlikely, and it is easily corrected as you go along. If students do need an explanation, it is simply that the unvoiced sound “s” follows unvoiced sounds and the voiced sound “z” follows voiced sounds, presumably because it is easier not to have change the voicing as you speak.
Typical student problems with plurals
As mentioned above, the most common student problem with plurals is simply using a singular noun when a plural is needed in errors like “There are two convenience store in my street” X, “How many sister do you have?” X and “I like apple” X. This is common with the many students whose first languages rarely or never use plural forms, but the same kinds of errors are also made by all language learners and English-speaking children. Students also often make the related mistake of using the plural but then not matching words around it in sentences like “Was there many people there?” X
Although it less of a problem than with other English final consonant clusters like “fifth” and “prompt”, students can sometimes have problems pronouncing the singular and plural with the same number of syllables, producing unnecessary “-iz” endings that sound like the plural should be spelt “chaires” or “cupes”. Students whose languages’ spellings are more phonetic than English can also sometimes pronounce “-es” ending as they are written, with “e” and “s” sounds (rhyming with “bless”) instead of “i” and “z”.
Other possible pronunciation problems tend to sort themselves out over time without too much specific practice, if only because the plurals are usually pronounced the way they are in English specifically because they are easier to say that way. More common can be spelling problems like “beachs”, “butterflys” and “sunrais”.
More seriously, practice of singular and plural is almost certain to lead to problems with uncountable nouns like “I like ice creams” X and “How many free times do you have?” X Students studying plurals for the first time are usually not ready to deal with uncountable nouns yet, so all you can do is plan the lesson carefully to give your class lots of countable things to talk about and ignore any uncountable noun problems that come up during communication. However, at higher levels an activity or lesson on distinguishing irregular plurals like “sheep” and “media” from uncountable nouns like “pork” and “information” can be very useful.
How to present plural nouns
Even students who speak languages in which plural forms are rarely or never used don’t seem to have any problem getting their head around the fact that nouns used about one thing (“a plate”, etc) are different from those used to talk about two or more things (“two plates”, “some plates”, etc). However, possibly because of how unnecessary the plural form usually is to actually communicate what you want to say, students will need a lot of drilling, correction and time before they get used to adding plural endings.
The first thing you need to do when introducing plurals for the first time is to make sure that all the nouns that you are using just take “-s” in the plural, leaving out any nouns that take “-es”, take “-ies”, are irregular, are uncountable, etc. In fact, in young learner classes I would go further and only teach (the singular of) such nouns in the two or three lessons leading up to that point to hopefully save the students bringing up awkward exceptions in the communicative stages of the first lesson on plurals.
I find that presenting plural nouns in a simple phrase or sentence helps make the meaning clear and helps students remember to add the form when needed. The easiest way of doing this is to drill “A pen, two pens, three pens” etc or “It is a pen, they are pens”, meaning that students will need to know “It is a…” and/ or numbers before the first lesson on plurals. I find that no actual explanation is needed at this stage, instead moving quickly into one of the games below to give the language more fun and context.
How to practise plural nouns
Plural nouns drilling games
Plural nouns beach ball drilling games
As students throw and catch or bounce a ball, they can count as high as they can with one noun (“One chair”, “Two chairs”, “Three chairs”, etc) until they make a mistake or drop the ball. They can also send the ball back and forth as they test each other with different nouns to make the plural out of (“Fox” “Foxes”, “Phenomenon” “Phenomena”, etc), perhaps with the rules of tennis, ping pong or volleyball.
Plural nouns stacking games
As students make a tower of blocks, paper cups, plastic kitchen sets, etc, students say what is in the tower (“There are two red blocks, two cups and three knives”, etc). You’ll need to make sure that the students have at least two of each thing and use things which have suitable plural forms for their level, e.g. some that take “iz” endings such as two (small) boxes.
Plural nouns flashcard games
There are few things more tedious than raising a picture of one teddy bear and then a picture of two teddy bears for students to shout out the names of, but these kinds of flashcards can be made more useful and fun with a couple of simple variations. One possibility is to flash the card up so quickly that students might miss how many of the thing is on each card. This will mean that they have to really concentrate when you show the card and that there is some guesswork involved when they shout out “(They are) teddy bears”. Another possibility is to slowly reveal the card for students to shout out “(It is an) apple” or “(They are) apples” as soon as they are fairly sure how many of that thing is on the card. This is most fun if the cards have a mix of ones where the picture is so big that there is clearly no room for a second thing and ones where the pictures are small and spread out, because this will mean that sometimes students can guess quickly and sometimes have to wait to see the second picture (or else take a chance by guessing before the second picture appears).
Singular and plural Kim’s game
Place a mix of objects on the table, with more than one of some of the things (e.g. one ruler, two erasers and three paper cups). Cover the objects with a cloth and remove and/ or add to some of the things. When you reveal the changed collection of things, students have say what has changed with sentences like “(There is) one fork (but there were two forks/ some forks)”. Especially if students are likely to try to cheat or get restless while waiting, you can also do all the changes beforehand and just show students before and after photos, but it’s more fun with physical objects. Using objects “live” also makes it easier to get students doing the same to test each other.
Where’s plural?
Make or find a picture with lots of things in it such as one from Where’s Wally?/ Where’s Waldo? Students try to find if there is just one or more than one of the thing that someone names and then shout out the right singular or plural form. Especially with a less detailed picture, the same game can also be played with the picture face down and the students trying to remember how many of each thing there is.
Plural nouns pelmanism
Pelmanism (also known as “the memory game” and “pairs”) is the very well-known game in which students turn over two of the cards that are spread face down across the table in order to find a match. This is perfect practice of plurals if you get students to say “(It is a) banana” when they turn over the first card and “(They are) bananas” if they find a matching one. However, you’ll need lots of matches for each card (e.g. six or eight banana cards) for there to be lots of plurals practice, so this limits the amount of vocabulary that can be practised and only makes this game suitable for very young learners.
For older and more advanced classes, you could make a pack of cards with a mix of different kinds of plural and make a match two words that have the same kind of ending, e.g. “locus” and “alumnus” and at least four other similar cards matching because all of their plurals end with “-i”.
Plural nouns TPR games
Plural nouns run and touch games
With very young learners, you can ask students to run, touch and count things in the class when you say the singular, e.g. running and shouting “One window, two windows” as they touch those things if you say “Window”. Alternatively, they can listen carefully to whether they hear a singular or plural and touch the right number of things before they sit down again, e.g. touching just one shelf if they hear “Shelf” but touching at least two if they hear “Shelves”.
Singular and plural mimes
This takes a bit more setting up than most activities in this article, but if you prepare the prompt worksheet or cards beforehand it is possible to get students miming and guessing sentences like “(It is a) ball” (miming playing soccer) and “(They are) balls” (miming juggling).
See the Simplest Responses game below for a TPR game concentrating more on pronunciation.
Plurals pronunciation activities
Plurals simplest responses games
Students listen to some words and show which of two categories they think the nouns belong to by racing to hold up one of the two cards they have been given. The simplest version is for students to listen and raise cards saying “Singular/ One/ A” or “Plural/ Two/ Some” depending on what they hear. After a little practice of just listening for “-(e/ie)s” endings, they can then listen to sentences with blanks like “I have many BLANK” and “There is a BEEP outside my house” and react in the same way depending on what form of the noun is missing.
Other possibilities for ways of dividing up the words and cards to hold up include “(basic/ simple) +s ending”/ “other ending”, “the same number of syllables (in the singular and plural)”/ “different number of syllables”, and ones with specific numbers of syllables such as “one syllable”/ “two syllables”.
With young learner classes the same words can be used for Plural Stations, in which students run and touch walls depending on what category they think things match, e.g. the wall near the board if they hear or think there should be an “iz” ending. They could also raise one of their two arms, make one of two gestures, throw things at two targets, etc instead of holding up cards or touching walls. These variations can also work for more than two groups, e.g. one of the four walls of the classroom each for “-s”, “-es”, “-ies” and singular.
Plural mazes
A quieter way of practising different categories of plurals is with a maze. Make a table with at least 30 squares and write in words that have the same kind of plural to make a (zigzag) line from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of the table. For example, if you want to practise “-iz” endings, you could put “church” or “churches” in the top left corner, put “lash(es)” in the square next to it, then continue with similar words joined up vertically, horizontally or diagonally across the maze until you reach the bottom right corner. Then fill all the other squares with words which don’t match that category such as “table(s)”. Students try to draw a line through the maze by finding the right words and crossing out the wrong words (to help or to fill time while waiting for other groups). The same game also works to test spelling with “-ys” and “-ies” words, in which case you definitely need to put the singular of the words in the squares.
Plural nouns communicative activities
Most of the activities below need students to at least be able to make and understand simple sentences like “There is/ are…”, but some such as the top one might be possible with lower level students if don’t mind some of the group discussion being in L1.
Singular and plural decisions
Give students a situation such as “three nights camping” and ask them to decide what and how many of each thing they will take, probably from a list of suitable objects (with the right level of difficulty of plurals). They can then compare ideas with other groups, and maybe vote on which other group has the best plan.
Singular and plurals storytelling
Make a list of things that might appear in the singular or plural in a story such as “dwarf” and “diamond” for a fairy tale, and put them on a worksheet or some cards. Ask students to use the words to make a story, deciding as they do so how many of each thing appears in the story and making sure that they use the right singular or plural form. They can then tell their story to people from other groups, perhaps then retelling stories that they heard and/ or voting on which other group’s story they like best.
Singular and plural sentence completion games
Students fill in the gaps on a worksheet and then play one of the two games below with their completed sentences. The sentences that they complete could be ones with gaps for singular or plural nouns (“There are many _______ in my bedroom”, “I have one ______ in my bag”, etc) and/ or singular or plural nouns that they should make (personal, true) sentences out of (“_________ clothes__________”, “____________ mistake ________”, etc).
Singular and plural sentence completion guessing game
Students complete at least half of the sentences on their worksheet with true information and then read out just the part that they have written (e.g. “CDs” or “I buy new BLANK once a year”, not including the words printed on the worksheet) for their partner to guess the whole sentence of.
Singular and plural sentence completion bluffing game
Students complete the sentences on their worksheet with a mix of true and false information. They then read out one sentence and see if their partner can guess if it is true or not, perhaps after asking for more details (in which case they should continue lying or continue telling the truth).
Singular and plural things in common
Students try to make sentences that are true for both of them with a mix of singular and plural forms, e.g. “We both have two siblings” or “We both have one glass of milk in the morning”.
Singular and plural differences personalised speaking
Students try to find sentences for which their partner would put in a singular noun and they would put in a plural of the same noun, or vice versa. For example, if one person can say “I have two sisters” and the other person says “I have one sister”, they get one point. You could also give them extra points if they make a sentence which no one else in the class thought of. You could also allow “I have no …s” as a plural sentence if that would be good practice for your students.
Singular and plural competitions
Students get one point if they have more than one and their partner has just one of something (but no points if their partner has none of that thing).
The big list of regular plurals ending in -s, -es and -ies, arranged by level
There are far too many useful words ending with “-s” to list, so this is mainly a list of words ending in “-es” and “-ies”. However, it also includes words that take “-s” in the plural because the singular already endings in “-e” but which have an “iz” pronunciation like “-es” endings. There is also a short list of the most useful words ending in “-s” which are always plural.
There is a similar list of irregular plurals in the article How to Teach Irregular Plurals.
Plurals that take es with an “iz” pronunciation and one added syllable (listed by level)
Elementary
buses
churches
classes
contact lenses
eyelashes
glasses
sandwiches
actresses
faxes
peaches
princesses
waitresses
Pre-Intermediate
beaches
boxes
brushes
businesses
dishes
dresses
inches
watches
Intermediate
bonuses
bosses
branches
foxes
kisses
losses
pitches
speeches
switches
taxes
viruses
weaknesses
wishes
witches
witnesses
Upper Intermediate
affixes
arches
atlases
benches
biases
bunches
bushes
circuses
coaches
cockroaches
crashes
crosses
gases
guesses
illnesses
matches
passes
prefixes
punches
radishes
remixes
riches
sketches
sketches
successes
suffixes
torches
wishes
Advanced
abscesses
approaches
batches
blemishes
blotches
blushes
breaches
brooches
buttresses
carcasses
censuses
choruses
clutches
complexes
congresses
crutches
dispatches
ditches
excesses
finches
flashes
fortresses
goddesses
harnesses
hutches
irises
lasses
launches
leeches
marches
marshes
masses
mattresses
mistresses
parishes
patches
pluses
porches
pouches
presses
rashes
recesses
reflexes
scratches
searches
sexes
skirmishes
splashes
stitches
stresses
thicknesses
trenches
winches
Plurals with just -s added but “iz” pronunciation and an added syllable (listed by level)
Elementary
bookcases
colleges
fridges
garages
houses
nurses
oranges
pages
palaces
pencil cases
sausages
spices
suitcases
teleconferences
video conferences
Pre-Intermediate
advantages
ages
ambulances
blouses
bridges
chances
changes
choices
conferences
dances
differences
disadvantages
diseases
excuses
exercises
experiences
faces
horses
images
increases
languages
necklaces
nieces
noises
offices
phrases
pieces
places
promises
responses
services
sizes
stages
surprises
text messages
uses
villages
wages
Intermediate
acquaintances
appearances
audiences
cabbages
carriages
cases
clauses
coincidences
compromises
conferences
courses
databases
divorces
expenses
finances
hostages
ounces
packages
pauses
performances
preferences
prices
prizes
purposes
purses
references
romances
shoelaces
sledges
slices
spaces
sponges
terraces
voices
voyages
workplaces
Upper Intermediate
absences
abuses
advances
alliances
allowances
appliances
assurances
auspices
averages
badges
beverages
braces
bruises
cages
carriages
causes
charges
circumstances
consequences
cottages
cruises
damages
devices
discharges
distances
disturbances
doses
edges
enterprises
entrances
exchanges
fences
forces
fragrances
franchises
fringes
fuses
glances
grievances
hedges
hinges
impulses
inferences
influences
injustices
instances
interfaces
invoices
licenses
marriages
masterpieces
messages
mortgages
moustaches
notices
occurrences
paces
passages
percentages
phases
pledges
poses
practices
prejudices
privileges
provinces
purchases
releases
residences
resources
ridges
roses
sacrifices
senses
sequences
sources
substances
surfaces
traces
urges
utterances
vases
verses
vices
warehouses
Advanced
accomplices
aces
allegiances
appendages
bandages
barges
bases
blockages
breezes
bronzes
caches
cartridges
collages
condolences
conveniences
creases
crevices
curses
disappearances
dispatches
embraces
essences
forges
furnaces
gauges
glimpses
gorges
greenhouses
guises
haunches
hoses
imbalances
impedances
lapses
leakages
ledges
licenses
lineages
linkages
lodges
midges
miscarriages
muses
novices
nuances
nuisances
outrages
partridges
pilgrimages
porpoises
pretences
prototypes
purges
racehorses
reassurances
recurrences
refuges
reminiscences
remittances
resonances
reverses
savages
sieges
silences
stances
stoppages
summonses
surges
synapses
syringes
tolerances
tortoises
typefaces
variances
vestiges
voltages
wedges
List of plurals ending in ies by level
Elementary
babies
batteries
butterflies
celebrities
cherries
dictionaries
documentaries
factories
French fries
hobbies
libraries
nationalities
photocopies stories
strawberries
Pre-Intermediate
accessories
activities
apologies
buddies
cities
copies
countries
emergencies
enquiries
ladies
memories
parties
raspberries
similarities
television personalities
Intermediate
abilities
allergies bodies
bullies
categories
centuries
charities
difficulties
disabilities
discoveries
duties
galleries
injuries
necessities
opportunities
personalities
replies
responsibilities
salaries
spies
strategies
studies
subsidiaries
supplies
tries
universities
varieties
worries
Upper Intermediate
allies
anxieties
authorities
casualties
ceremonies
commodities
communities
controversies
counties
currencies
deliveries
democracies
economies
enemies
facilities
ferries
flies
galleries
industries
inequalities
lorries
luxuries
ministries
minorities
mysteries
obituaries
policies
priorities
properties
puppies
quantities
queries
redundancies
remedies
societies
theories
victories
Advanced
abnormalities
adversaries
agencies
ambiguities
amenities
analogies
annuities
anomalies
antibodies
antiquities
armies
arteries
atrocities
autobiographies
beauties
beneficiaries
boundaries
capabilities
capacities
cemeteries
certainties
colonies
commentaries
competencies
constituencies
contemporaries
contingencies
curiosities
daisies
deficiencies
deformities
deities
delicacies
dependencies
deputies
destinies
diaries
dignitaries
discrepancies
disparities
distilleries
eccentricities
embassies
emissaries
entities
entries
equities
estuaries
eventualities
extremities
fairies
fantasies
fatalities
ferries
festivities
fisheries
follies
forgeries
formalities
functionaries
galaxies
hippies
identities
ideologies
idiosyncrasies
impurities
inaccuracies
inadequacies
inconsistencies
indignities
inefficiencies
insecurities
intermediaries
ironies
irregularities
laboratories
liabilities
localities
loyalties
luminaries
melodies
mercenaries
mercies
methodologies
miseries
missionaries
monasteries
monopolies
municipalities
nannies
nappies
necessities
novelties
obscenities
oddities
ovaries
pansies
pastries
peculiarities
penalties
philosophies
ponies
poppies
possibilities
principalities
prophecies
qualities
rarities
refineries
repositories
robberies
rubies
sensibilities
sensitivities
signatories
specialities
specialties
subsidies
sympathies
symphonies
tapestries
tendencies
territories
tragedies
treaties
tributaries
utilities
vacancies
vagaries
wellies
List of plurals ending in ys by level
Elementary
boys
days
holidays keys
toys
Pre-Intermediate
ashtrays
essays
Intermediate
birthdays
deejays
delays
highways
journeys
monkeys
plays
trays
ways
weekdays
Upper Intermediate
alleys
attorneys
buoys
cowboys
displays
guys
homestays
motorways
screenplays
surveys
trolleys
turkeys
valleys
Advanced
abbeys
alleyways
alloys
archways
arrays
bays
bellboys
castaways
chimneys
choirboys
cockneys
convoys
decoys
donkeys
doorways
driveways
dual carriageways
envoys
fairways
homeboys
jerseys
jockeys
joys
kidneys
lackeys
medleys
ospreys
pageboys
paperboys
passageways
pathways
paydays
playboys
ploys
pulleys
quays
relays
runways
schoolboys
sickbays
slipways
stingrays
storeys
stowaways
strays
sunrays
tomboys
volleys
walkways
washdays
waterways
List of plurals ending in oes by level
Note that there are many other possible -oes plurals that I probably wouldn’t teach, usually because an -os plural is also possible.
Elementary
potatoes
tomatoes
Pre-Intermediate
heroes
superheroes
Intermediate
zeroes
Upper Intermediate
echoes
volcanoes
Advanced
buffaloes
embargoes
torpedoes
vetoes
weirdoes
Words ending in s that are always plural (with no singular form without –s, listed by level)
The words below always take a plural form of the verb (“The jeans are…”). They are therefore different from singular and uncountable words ending in “-s” which take third person S such as “The news is…” and also different from words which end in “-s” in the both the singular and plural such “The series is/ are…”
Elementary
clothes
glasses (meaning spectacles)
jeans
pajamas/ pyjamas
scissors
shorts
stairs
Pre-Intermediate
congratulations
headquarters
pants
trousers
Intermediate
binoculars
crossroads
leggings
stockings
tights
Upper Intermediate
contents
goggles
kitchen scales
outskirts
spectacles
toiletries
tongs
tweezers
Advanced
barracks
bellows
dregs
dungarees
flares
forceps
fumes
gallows
hot pants
overalls
pincers
pliers
quarters
shears
slacks
vespers