Pluralization

In general, follow the standard rules for pluralization in American English and use the regular plural form of a word in most cases. Avoid using 's to form a plural to avoid confusing a plural with a possessive or contraction.

For more information, see Contractions and Possessives.

Singular and plural

For sentences with long or complex subjects, make sure to use either a plural or singular appropriately.

Recommended: Confirm that the number of entries listed in the directory is accurate.

Recommended: The workloads with the app: backend label represent the traffic source.

Not recommended: The efficiency of algorithms that process data sets depend on memory allocation.

For sentences with more than one subject being connected by and or or, make sure to use either a plural and singular appropriately.

Recommended: The request payload and header information are logged for debugging.

Recommended: Either the API keys or service account wasn't authenticated.

Not recommended: User authentication and authorization is processed and handled by the security module.

For consistent style, use a plural after one or more, not a singular.

Because one or more can express the possibility of one or more outcomes, it's sometimes helpful to reword the sentence for clarity.

Recommended: If one or more tests fail, a system warning is triggered.

Recommended: If any one test fails, a system warning is triggered.

See also Plurals in parentheses.

Use a singular after more than one, not a plural.

Recommended: You can create more than one instance at a time.

Plural abbreviations

In general, treat acronyms, initialisms, and other abbreviations as regular words when making them plural. Avoid using 's to form the plural to help distinguish the plural form from the possessive. For more information, see Possessives.

Recommended: APIs, SKEs, and IDEs

Not recommended: API's, SKE's, and IDE's

If the acronym, initialism, or abbreviation ends in s, sh, ch, or x, then add es—for example, OSes, DISHes, DCCHes, and BMXes.

Note: Forming a plural using 's can be ambiguous or confusing to readers and might cause issues in translation. For more information, see Write for a global audience.

When spelling out a term, make sure that both the spelled-out term and abbreviation match, with both either being a plural or singular.

Recommended: virtual machines (VMs)

Not recommended: virtual machines (VM)

When using numbers with units of measure, use the singular when spelling out the unit if the number is one. Otherwise, use the plural form for all other numbers, including zero, and decimal numbers, and numbers greater than one.

Recommended: 0 degrees

Recommended: 0.5 degrees

Recommended: 1 degree

Recommended: 15 degrees

Don't make an abbreviation plural when used as a unit with a number.

Recommended: 64 GB

Not recommended: 64 GBs

Note: Sometimes it can be helpful to spell out -bit or -byte terms. However, in general, it's not necessary to spell out a unit when used in combination with a specific number.

Make sure to include a space, preferably a nonbreaking space, between the number and abbreviation. For more information, see Spaces in units of measurement.

For more information, see Abbreviations.

Plural product and feature names

In general, don't form a plural or possessive for the trademark of a product, feature, or company name. For more information, see Use trademarks only as modifiers and Product, feature, and company names.

In general, use singular class names. Don't manually make a singular class name plural. Doing so might cause issues in translation. Instead, add a plural noun after the class name.

Recommended: Intent objects and Activity instances

Not recommended: Intents and Activitys

Not recommended: Intents and Activities

For more information, see API reference code comments.

Plurals in parentheses

Don't put optional plurals in parentheses. Instead, use either a plural or singular construction and keep things consistent throughout your documentation. Choose what is most appropriate for your documentation and your audience. If it's important in a specific context to indicate both, use one or more.

Recommended	Not recommended
To find your API key, visit the Credentials page.	To find your API key(s), visit the Credentials page.
The value of the parent depends on the values of its children.	The value of the parent depends on the value(s) of its child(ren).
You can use a physical linecard, which can contain one or more ports.	You can use a physical linecard, which can contain port(s).

Plural pronouns

For information about plural pronouns like we, you, and they, see Pronouns and Second person and first person.