war (pl. cogṫa[1]); cuan, a harbour; dún, a fort (pl. dúnta and dúna); ceud, a hundred[2]; líon, a net; ceap, a trunk of a tree (pl. ceapṫa[W 1]); múr (pl. múrṫa), a wall.
68. Other nominative plurals—clár, a board, a table, makes cláir or cláraċa; tobar, a well, makes tobair or tobraċa, tobaireaċa or toibreaċa; sluaġ, a crowd, makes sluaiġte.
69. Many nouns of this declension have two or more forms in the nominative plural. The regular plural is the better one, though the others are also used. The following are a few examples of such nouns:—fear, a man (pl. fir, feara; mac, a son (pl. mic, maca); leaḃar, a book leaḃair, leaḃra; arm, an army (pl. airm, arma); capall, a horse (pl. capaill, caiple).
70. The termination ‑raḋ has a collective, not a plural force; just like ry in the English words cavalry, infantry, etc. This termination was formerly neuter, but now it is masculine or feminine; the genitive masculine being ‑raiḋ, the genitive feminine ‑raiḋe. Hence laoċraḋ, a band of warriors, macraḋ, a company of youths, eaċraḋ, a number of steeds (cavalry), are not really plurals of laoċ, mac, and eaċ, but collective nouns formed from them. Likewise éanlaiṫ, (spoken form, éanlaiṫe) is a collective noun meaning a flock of birds, or birds in general, and it is not really the plural of éan. However, laoċraḋ and éanlaiṫ are now used as plurals.
Appendix I. gives a list of nouns belonging to this declension.
- ↑ All dictionaries give the plural as ceapa.
