to remove (money) from a bank account |
Since late 16th century, borrowed from Middle French essay , essai ( “ essay ” ) , meaning coined by Montaigne in the same time, from the same words in earlier meanings 'experiment; assay; attempt', from Old French essay , essai , assay , assai , from Latin exagium ( “ weight; weighing, testing on the balance ” ) , from exigere + -ium .
Audio ( ): | ( ) |
essay ( plural essays )
Translations.
(maqāla), (baḥṯ) (šaradrutʻyun), (ēsse) (rosona) , , , (inşa) (in high school) (tvor), (esé), (nárys) (probondho) (esé), (sǎčinénie), (óčerk) (cacicakum:), (catam:ngai) (zok man ) / (záwén), / (lùnwén), (zuòwén) , , , , ; , (in school) , , (ese), (txzuleba) , (dokímio), (pragmateía), (ékthesi), (sýngrama) (meletḗmata) (masá) (nibandh), (mazmūn) , , (essei), (ずいひつ, zuihitsu) (ésse), (şyğarma), (oçerk), (maqala) (ʼatthaʼbɑt) (supil), (esei) (esse), (dilbayan), (ocerk) , (esej) , , (upanyāsaṁ) (nibandha) (maqāla) (maqâle), (jostâr) , , , (sočinénije), (essɛ́), (óčerk) , class , (maqola), (navištor), (inšo) (inşa) (vyāsamu) (kwaam-riiang) , (esé), (eséj), (tvir), (nárys) (maqālā), (inśāiyā), (mazmūn) (maqale) , , , , (esey) |
From Middle French essayer , essaier , from Old French essaiier , essayer , essaier , assaiier , assayer , assaier , from essay , essai , assay , assai ( “ attempt; assay; experiment ” ) as above.
essay ( third-person singular simple present essays , present participle essaying , simple past and past participle essayed )
Borrowed from English essay ( “ essay ” ) , from Middle French essai ( “ essay; attempt, assay ” ) , from Old French essai , from Latin exagium (whence the neuter gender).
essay n ( plural essays , diminutive essaytje n )
Norwegian bokmål.
Borrowed from English essay , from Middle French essai .
essay n ( definite singular essayet , indefinite plural essay or essayer , definite plural essaya or essayene )
essay n ( definite singular essayet , indefinite plural essay , definite plural essaya )
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Published on April 14, 2023 by Jack Caulfield .
A plural noun is a noun that refers to more than one of something (as opposed to a singular noun, which refers to just one). Like singular nouns, they may refer to people, animals, things, concepts, or places.
Plural nouns are normally formed by adding -s to the singular noun (e.g., the singular “cat” becomes the plural “cats”). With certain nouns, you need to add or change some of the other letters. The rules are explained in the table below.
There are also some irregular plurals that don’t end in -s at all. The following section explains them.
Word ending | How to form the plural | Examples |
---|---|---|
— | Add to form most plurals that don’t fall into the categories below and to form the plurals of names. | dog: dog ; house: house ; editor: editor ; concept: concept ; Monday: Monday ; Kennedy: Kennedy |
ch, sh, ss, x | Add . | church: church ; wish: wish ; grass: grass ; tax: tax |
f, fe | Often pluralized normally, but sometimes, the or is replaced with . | belief: belief ; staff: staff ; safe: safe ; wolf: wol ; life: li |
i | Usually, pluralize normally. But is occasionally used instead. | bikini: bikini ; chili: chili |
o | When preceded by another vowel, pluralize normally. When preceded by a consonant, usually add . But some words are still pluralized normally. | cuckoo: cuckoo ; tomato: tomato ; hero: hero ; piano: piano ; photo: photo |
s, z | Add . Sometimes, the consonant is doubled (more often with ). | gas: gas ; waltz: waltz ; canvas: canvas ; quiz: quiz |
uy, y | Replace with , but only if it’s preceded by a consonant or by . If preceded by a different vowel, pluralize normally. | city: cit ; baby: bab ; spy: sp ; soliloquy: soliloqu ; day: day ; ploy: ploy |
Irregular plurals, plurals of compound nouns, common mistake: adding an apostrophe, plural nouns with singular functions, nouns that are always plural, uncountable nouns, worksheet: plural nouns, other interesting language articles, frequently asked questions about plural nouns.
Some plural nouns don’t end in -s at all. These are generally called irregular plurals . They are typically either leftovers from older ways of forming plurals in English or foreign words that were imported into English.
Only a small proportion of nouns have irregular plurals, but some of them are very commonly used words, so it’s important to be aware of them. There are a few main groups of irregular plurals, which are explained in the table below.
If you’re unsure about how to pluralize a word that isn’t mentioned in the table, consult a dictionary.
A small number of nouns have retained their Old English plural form, using and sometimes altering other parts of the word. | brother: [only used in certain religious or organizational contexts; otherwise “brothers”]; child: ; ox: |
Some nouns become plural by simply in the middle of the word. | foot: ; goose: ; man: ; mouse: ; tooth: ; woman: |
often (but not always) retain their original plural forms. | analysis: ; appendix: ; formula: ; fungus: ; millennium: ; phenomenon: |
such as French, Italian, and Hebrew occasionally retain their original plural forms, although it’s usually acceptable to use a normal English plural instead. | bureau: or ; cherub: or ; timpano: |
Some nouns—often the names of animals—have . | ; ; ; ; |
There are a few that don’t fit any of the categories above. | die: ; penny: ; person: |
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Compound nouns are nouns that are made up of multiple words. They may be open compounds (written with spaces; e.g., “head of state”); hyphenated compounds (written with hyphens ; e.g., “brother-in-law”); or closed compounds (no spaces or hyphens; e.g., “household”).
To create the plural of a compound noun, you often pluralize only the final word (e.g., “high schools “), but there are also cases where you pluralize an earlier word (e.g., “ heads of state”) or occasionally multiple words (e.g., “ men-children “).
To determine how to pluralize a compound noun, consider which word is the “head” of the noun—the thing being represented, which the other words modify. For example, “high schools” refers to multiple schools, not multiple “highs.”
When it’s still not obvious, consult a dictionary to find the correct plural.
A common mistake when forming plural nouns is to add an apostrophe before the “s.” In English, apostrophes are used to form possessive nouns and contractions , not plurals. You also don’t need an apostrophe to pluralize a number, acronym , or proper noun .
There’s one context in which it’s standard to use an apostrophe to form the plural. This is when you’re pluralizing a single letter. The apostrophe is generally added in such cases to avoid confusion with other words (e.g., “a’s” vs. “as”).
Some nouns are said to be plural in form but singular in construction . These words originate as plural forms but are now primarily used in a singular sense.
This is most common in the names of fields of study: for example, “physics,” “mathematics,” “ethics,” and “aesthetics.” Other examples include “news,” “measles,” and “billiards.”
“Singular in construction” means that these words have singular subject-verb agreement . For example, you’d write “the news is …” rather than “the news are …”
Similarly, some nouns are always plural and have no singular form—typically because they refer to something that consists of a pair of something. For example, “scissors” consist of two blades, “pants” of two legs, and “glasses” of two lenses.
Even a single pair of scissors, for example, is referred to in the plural (e.g., “the scissors are over there”). These nouns are sometimes referred to by the Latin term plurale tantum (“plural only”).
Because it’s wrong to use an indefinite article with a plural noun (e.g., “a scissors”) and no singular form exists (e.g., there’s no such thing as “a scissor”), the phrase “a pair of” is used before the noun when an indefinite article is needed. “Pairs of” is also used to specify quantities of these nouns (e.g., “three pairs of pants,” not “three pants”).
Your new spectacles suit you very nicely.
How many pairs of shorts do you own?
Uncountable nouns (also called mass nouns or noncount nouns ) are nouns that don’t have a plural form and can’t be preceded by an indefinite article (“a” or “an”). They often refer to abstract ideas or processes (e.g., “research”), physical substances (e.g., “water”), or areas of study (e.g., “geography”).
Uncountable nouns are singular, not plural, in terms of subject-verb agreement, and the words themselves cannot be pluralized. An alternative phrasing or word choice must be used instead:
If you need to refer to a specific quantity of an uncountable noun, you use a unit of measurement to do so, since the noun itself doesn’t represent a specific quantity:
Test your understanding of how plural nouns are formed with the worksheet below. In each sentence, add the correct plural form of the noun in brackets. Some of the plurals are regular, some irregular.
If you want to know more about nouns , pronouns , verbs , and other parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other language articles with explanations and examples.
Nouns & pronouns
The plural of “moose” is the same as the singular: “moose.” It’s one of a group of plural nouns in English that are identical to the corresponding singular nouns. So it’s wrong to write “mooses.”
For example, you might write “There are several moose in the forest.”
The correct plural of “octopus” is “octopuses.”
People often write “octopi” instead because they assume that the plural noun is formed in the same way as Latin loanwords such as “fungus/fungi.” But “octopus” actually comes from Greek, where its original plural is “octopodes.” In English, it instead has the regular plural form “octopuses.”
For example, you might write “There are four octopuses in the aquarium.”
Normally, the plural of “fish” is the same as the singular: “fish.” It’s one of a group of irregular plural nouns in English that are identical to the corresponding singular nouns (e.g., “moose,” “sheep”). For example, you might write “The fish scatter as the shark approaches.”
If you’re referring to several species of fish, though, the regular plural “fishes” is often used instead. For example, “The aquarium contains many different fishes , including trout and carp.”
The plural of “crisis” is “crises.” It’s a loanword from Latin and retains its original Latin plural noun form (similar to “analyses” and “bases”). It’s wrong to write “crisises.”
For example, you might write “Several crises destabilized the regime.”
We strongly encourage students to use sources in their work. You can cite our article (APA Style) or take a deep dive into the articles below.
Caulfield, J. (2023, April 14). What Is a Plural Noun? | Examples, Rules & Exceptions. Scribbr. Retrieved June 24, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/nouns-and-pronouns/plural-noun/
Aarts, B. (2011). Oxford modern English grammar . Oxford University Press.
Butterfield, J. (Ed.). (2015). Fowler’s dictionary of modern English usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Garner, B. A. (2022). Garner’s modern English usage (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.
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Definition of essay noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
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Examples of essay, collocations with essay.
These are words often used in combination with essay .
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[ noun es -ey es -ey , e- sey verb e- sey ]
a picture essay.
Other words from.
Origin of essay 1
As several of my colleagues commented, the result is good enough that it could pass for an essay written by a first-year undergraduate, and even get a pretty decent grade.
GPT-3 also raises concerns about the future of essay writing in the education system.
This little essay helps focus on self-knowledge in what you’re best at, and how you should prioritize your time.
As Steven Feldstein argues in the opening essay, technonationalism plays a part in the strengthening of other autocracies too.
He’s written a collection of essays on civil engineering life titled Bridginess, and to this day he and Lauren go on “bridge dates,” where they enjoy a meal and admire the view of a nearby span.
I think a certain kind of compelling essay has a piece of that.
The current attack on the Jews,” he wrote in a 1937 essay, “targets not just this people of 15 million but mankind as such.
The impulse to interpret seems to me what makes personal essay writing compelling.
To be honest, I think a lot of good essay writing comes out of that.
Someone recently sent me an old Joan Didion essay on self-respect that appeared in Vogue.
There is more of the uplifted forefinger and the reiterated point than I should have allowed myself in an essay.
Consequently he was able to turn in a clear essay upon the subject, which, upon examination, the king found to be free from error.
It is no part of the present essay to attempt to detail the particulars of a code of social legislation.
But angels and ministers of grace defend us from ministers of religion who essay art criticism!
It is fit that the imagination, which is free to go through all things, should essay such excursions.
You know what an essay is. It's that piece you had to write in school, hopefully not (but probably) the night before it was due, about a subject such as What Freedom Means to You—at least five pages, double-spaced, and don't even try to get away with anything larger than a 12-point font. (Kudos for thinking to tweak the margins, though.)
Remember the difference and get an 'A' for effort.
You might also know that essay can be a verb, with its most common meaning being "to try, attempt, or undertake":
A very close approach to the evil of Idi Amin is essayed in Giles Foden's 1998 novel The Last King of Scotland , whose narrator is the Scottish personal physician to the dictator. — Norman Rush, The New York Review of Books , 7 Oct. 2004 The principal accidents she remembers, before last summer's, involved chipping a couple of teeth while, as a fifth grader, she was essaying a back flip off a diving board,... — E. J. Kahn, Jr., The New Yorker , 17 Aug. 1987
The verb assay , meanwhile, is used to mean "to test or evaluate" and can be applied to anything from laboratory samples to contest entries:
He bounced from job to job, working on a shrimp boat and later for Pan American Laboratories assaying chemicals coming in from Mexico. — Steve Clark, The Brownville Herald , 21 Apr. 2017 "Each burger will be assayed by visitors and a panel of judges, including local chefs Jen Knox, Gina Sansonia, Judith Able, Bret Hauser, Camilo Cuartas and Peter Farrand." — Phillip Valys, SouthFlorida.com , 19 May 2017
While this distinction might seem clear-cut on the surface, there exists a great deal of historical overlap between essay and assay . The two words derive from the same root—the Middle French essai , which ultimately derives from a Late Latin noun, exagium , meaning "act of weighing."
At one time, assay and essay were synonyms, sharing the meaning "try" or "attempt." In the 17th century, an essay was an effort to test or prove something:
Edmond: I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. — William Shakespeare, King Lear , 1606
For the modern noun use of essay to mean "a written exploration of a topic," we can almost certainly thank Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), a French writer noted for working in the form. Borrowing a word that emphasized their identity as literary "attempts," Montaigne devised Essais as a title for the vignette-typed pieces that he began publishing in 1580 and spanned over a thousand pages, covering subjects as varied and wide-ranging as solitude, cannibalism, and drunkenness.
Those last ones probably won't be in the final exam.
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What are the plural forms of words.
Word Type | Example in the Singular Form | Example in the Plural Form |
---|---|---|
Noun | ||
Determiner | ||
Pronoun | ||
Verb | trying | trying |
Pronoun | Name |
---|---|
I | first person singular |
You | second person singular |
He / She / It | third person singular |
We | first person plural |
You | second person plural |
They | third person plural |
Pronoun | Name | Example Verb | Example Verb | Example Verb |
---|---|---|---|---|
I | first person singular | I ate | I eat | I will eat |
You | second person singular | You ate | You eat | You will eat |
He / She / It | third person singular | He ate | He eats | He will eat |
We | first person plural | We ate | We eat | We will eat |
You | second person plural | You ate | You eat | You will eat |
They | third person plural | They ate | They eat | They will eat |
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In general, a noun is a person, place, or thing. A proper noun is a specialized name for a specific person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are always capitalized (e.g., “Crayola”). Nouns can be singular (i.e., only one) or plural (i.e., more than one).
To make a noun plural, add “s” (e.g., “dogs” is the plural form of “dog”), “es” (e.g., “boxes” is the plural form of “box”; add “es” to most nouns that end in “ch,” “s,” “sh,” “x,” and “z” to make them plural), and sometimes “ies” (e.g., “babies” is the plural form of “baby”; see the Notes section for exceptions to this grammar guideline ) to the end of the noun.
Irregular plural nouns , which include terms like “women,” “men,” “children,” “alumni,” “feet,” “mice,” “data,” and so forth, usually are not made plural by adding “s,” “es,” or “ies” to their endings. However, some irregular plural nouns have the same endings as regular plural nouns, such as “leaves,” “knives,” “analyses,” and “theses.”
Plural nouns are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 4.18 and 6.11 and the Concise Guide Sections 2.18 and 5.1
Usually, a surname is made plural by adding an “s” to the end of it (e.g., “Ayubis” is the plural form of the surname “Ayubi”), but there are exceptions. Add “es” to most surnames that end in “ch,” “s,” “sh,” “x,” and “z” to make them plural: for example, “Burch” becomes “Burches,” “Jones” becomes “Joneses,” “Nash” becomes “Nashes,” “Knox” becomes “Knoxes,” and “Hernández” becomes “Hernándezes.”
However, if the “ch” at the end of a surname is pronounced with a hard “k,” like “Bach,” add “s” to the end of the surname to make it plural: “Bachs” (the same is true for common nouns ending in a hard “ch”: “stomachs”). Likewise, if the “x” at the end of a surname is silent, like “Rioux,” make the surname plural by adding an “s” to the end of the name: “Riouxs.”
Although there are many unique ways to form plural nouns, please note that placing an apostrophe “s” or just an apostrophe after an “s” at the end of a noun is not one of them. “Tuesday’s” and “cat’s” are never the plurals of “Tuesday” and “cat”; the plurals are “Tuesdays” and “cats.” In general, an apostrophe “s” is used to form the possessive case of a noun .
Some nouns are spelled the same way in their singular form as they are in their plural form (e.g., “fish,” “moose,” “sheep”). Other nouns do not have a singular form and are always spelled in the plural form (e.g., “clothes,” “eyeglasses,” “scissors”). Conversely, some nouns do not have a plural form (e.g., “homework,” “milk,” “advice”).
Also, to make an abbreviation plural, add an “s” to the end of the abbreviation. For example, “HCP” is the abbreviation of “health care provider” and “HCPs” is its plural form.
The spelling guidelines on this page serve as general pluralization recommendations and are not comprehensive. They are not specific to APA Style and can be found in many dictionaries and other style guides. The APA Style Experts frequently consult the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary for their spelling guidance .
Some common examples of nouns in their singular and plural forms are presented next.
Alex | Alexes |
attorney | attorneys |
branch | branches |
bus | buses |
case | cases |
Choi | Chois |
class | classes |
deer | deer |
Dietrich | Dietrichs |
digital object identifier (DOI) | DOIs |
family | families |
fox | foxes |
Goodrich | Goodriches |
half | halves |
hypothesis | hypotheses |
influencer | influencers |
Lacroix | Lacroixs |
life | lives |
Lopez | Lopezes |
monarch | monarchs |
patient | patients |
person | people |
phenomenon | phenomena |
screenshot | screenshots |
Smith | Smiths |
theory | theories |
tomato | tomatoes |
tooth | teeth |
Walsh | Walshes |
waltz | waltzes |
Williams | Williamses |
wish | wishes |
a “Attornies” is not the plural form of “attorney” because the letter that precedes the “y” is a vowel (i.e., an “e”) and not a consonant . In general, do not change nouns that end in “y” to “ies” to make them plural if the letter that precedes the “y” is a vowel; add an “s” to the end of the noun to make it plural.
b “Families” ends in “ies” because the letter that precedes the “y” in “family” is a consonant (i.e., an “l”). However, there are exceptions to this guidance. For example, “moneys” and “monies” are acceptable plural forms of “money.” When a term has more than one plural form, use your best judgment to determine which spelling is more appropriate to use in your work.
c The term “persons” is sometimes used in research settings to refer to groups of a specific number and in a legal context such as “missing persons” or “persons of interest.” Nevertheless, “people” is the preferred plural form of “person.”
d “Peoples” may be used to describe specific ethnic communities such as “Indigenous Peoples” or “First Peoples.”
Audio (US) | ( ) |
| |
Plain form | Third-person singular | Past tense | Past participle | Present participle |
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When writing (a blog post, script, etc..) what is the proper way to indicate two or more instances of a single letter? For instance, in Monty Python's Bookshop Sketch :
C: I wonder if you might have a copy of "Rarnaby Budge"? P: No, as I say, we're right out of Edmund Wells! C: No, not Edmund Wells - Charles Dikkens. P: (pause - eagerly) Charles Dickens?? C: Yes. P: (excitedly) You mean "Barnaby Rudge"! C: No, "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens. That's Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author. P: (slight pause) No, well we don't have "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author, and perhaps to save time I should add that we don't have "Karnaby Fudge" by Darles Chickens, or "Farmer of Sludge" by Marles Pickens, or even "Stickwick Stapers" by Farles Wickens with four M's and a silent Q!!!!! Why don't you try W. H. Smith's? C: Ah did, They sent me here.
I had always believed that plural never uses an apostrophe before the 's' (it's only used for possession), but I have rarely seen in written material the format "four Ms". (On a side note, whoever wrote this transcript also used "two Ks".)
On a side note, and perhaps this should be a separate question, if a Compact Disc is a CD, then two Compact Discs would be two CDs right? (I see "CD's" written everywhere )
The Chicago Manual of Style , one of the more widely used style guides in the United States, says:
Capital letters used as words, numerals used as nouns, and abbreviations usually form the plural by adding s . To aid comprehension, lowercase letters form the plural with an apostrophe and an s .
So: Dikkens with two Ks , but mind your p's and q's . (And always CDs , unless you're talking about something the CD owns.)
Harbrace College Handbook 6th edition section 15d
Use the apostrophe and s to form the plural of letters, figures, symbols, and words referred to as words. Examples Congreve seldom crossed his t's, his 7's looked like 9's, and his and's were usually &'s. Note: This apostrophe is sometimes omitted when there is no danger of ambiguity: the 1930's, or the 1930s; two B's and three C's, or two Bs and three Cs.
This is one of those annoying exceptions to the general rule of never using an apostrophe to form plurals. It can be used when treating letters and numerals as nouns.
Personally, I only use it with lowercase letters where it is distinctly helpful ( mind your p's and q's ); for uppercase and numerals, adding a lowercase 's' should be clear enough.
To form plural of letters, figures, symbols and abbreviations put the concerned thing in single inverted comma and then add s.
Meaning: a short piece of writing on a particular subject.
Essay | Essays |
The singular possessive form of “Essay” is “Essay’s”.
The plural possessive form of “Essay” is “Essays'”.
About the author.
Hi, I'm USMI, engdic.org's Author & Lifestyle Linguist. My decade-long journey in language and lifestyle curation fuels my passion for weaving words into everyday life. Join me in exploring the dynamic interplay between English and our diverse lifestyles. Dive into my latest insights, where language enriches every aspect of living.
Exploring how religious and secular forces interact in the modern world.
The (national) fantasies of hope: rethinking the 2024 indian elections.
In early June 2024, India completed its general elections, which resulted in a third consecutive victory for the incumbent Hindu nationalist Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) margin of victory, however, was substantially lower than expected and the party failed to win a parliamentary majority in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament. The change in the margin of victory marks the return of coalition politics, as Modi must now rely on allied parties to form the new government under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which includes numerous center and right-wing parties. Conversely, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), led by the primary opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), stunned many observers as it secured a greater number of seats than expected. The demise of the INC and its leader Rahul Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s inaugural prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, appeared to have been greatly exaggerated.
These election results produced a sense of jubilation amongst Indians who are against the politics of the Modi government. On social media and in news stories, people celebrated that Modi was “cut to size,” but more significantly, that Indians had reclaimed their “democracy” in spite of significant electoral malpractice. Within days, a plethora of analyses from Indian academics in particular circulated and proclaimed that something had fundamentally changed in India. Some argued that this election was a return to “a disinterested vision of the good society” over one that was a “politics of self-interest,” while others spoke of how “the pall of suffocation created by a decade of Modi’s strongman style…has lifted” and that this election “affirmed pluralism over populism.” The election, thus, was viewed as a “vote against hate.” Perhaps the title that succinctly summarized most reactions was that the elections brought “hope, even in defeat.” Therefore, even though the BJP retained power, the failure to reach its dominant majority in the 543-member Lok Sabha— ‘ab ki baar char sau paar’ [This time with over 400 seats] as Modi’s campaign slogan went—signaled hope for Indian democracy as it was presumed that the relationship between state and society could undergo repair as the latter could renew the state.
In-depth electoral analysis and judgments of the recent Indian elections abound. Yet, is it possible to read these initial moments of hope as indicative of an Indian “National Symbolic”—what Lauren Berlant has defined as some “tangled cluster” of “the juridical, territorial ( jus soli ), genetic ( jus sanguinis ), linguistic, or experiential” that transforms individuals into national subjects? (5) The National Symbolic produces fantasy and, in particular, “a fantasy of national integration, although the content of this fantasy is a matter of cultural debate and historical transformation” (22). How do the celebratory, and indeed, jubilatory, declarations in response to the recent elections demonstrate an ongoing desire for an integrated Indian form? And how might that national fantasy affirm, rather than repudiate, Modi and his politics? We contend the celebration of Indian political forms—citizenship and the constitution, for example—reveals the perpetuation of an Indian national fantasy while it disavows the violent divisions that produce the very space of the nation. [1] Put differently, hope reaffirms the life and the narrative of the nation—signing and countersigning an Indian history, both a singular and plural one. Our goal, in contrast, is not to provide a more inclusive understanding of the Indian national fantasy, but to consider the theoretical underpinnings of the post-election relief that continue to make India a particularly powerful object of desire.
If this celebration, this hope, is tethered to an Indian national fantasy, what is this fantasy with all its multiple and contradictory meanings? For most liberal-left Indians, Modi’s tenure as prime minister since 2014 violates India’s foundation as a tolerant, multicultural nation that—while not perfect—strives towards a democratic and secular form. This tolerant form of India gains its coherence against the religious fundamentalist or the orthodox, which is known, notoriously in the historiography of South Asia, as the semiticization of Indian traditions—in which the introduction of proselytization and the assertion of religious difference during the colonial period created a “semitic” form against a tolerant “Indic” one . Numerous scholars have demonstrated that this racist framing accrues numerous adherents across the political spectrum. Sustained by historical analyses that privilege the fluid and multiple, national fantasies around India are thus bound to tolerance. It is a tolerance that functions in concert with “the will of an interventionist modernizing state in order to…supply, in the name of ‘national culture,’ a homogenized content to the notion of citizenship” as Partha Chatterjee writes—an integrated, whole, and unassailable national body.
The Indian constitution plays a significant role in this national fantasy, and it certainly was invoked a number of times during the 2024 election. Rahul Gandhi appeared in a press conference with the constitution in hand; reports later commented on how sales of the constitution have skyrocketed since. After his victory, Modi, too, called the constitution a “ guiding light. ”
One reason for the Indian constitution’s critical role in national fantasy, especially on the liberal-left, is because of Indian federalism: the distribution of powers between the national government and the different states’ governments creates a political form that allows for the possibility of tolerance and inclusion for diverse peoples. To take one example, in his theorization, Partha Chatterjee contends that the federalism enshrined in the Indian constitution coupled with the unique character of Indian citizenship does not allow for nation-people-state to be collapsed together to create a whole integrated national fantasy. There can be no singular National Symbolic, although the BJP constitutes an attempt to create one. Instead, in India, Chatterjee contends we find remarkably diverse political communities that are “peoples-nation”—political communities not integrated into the nation-state, but in tense relation to the nation-state. This separation provides an opportunity for a redemptive politics that is tolerant of numerous narratives and peoples. For Chatterjee, this is the case because of the structure of India’s postcolonial democracy in which formal citizenship was granted to all before their inclusion in civil society, creating, what Chatterjee calls, an alternative political society. In short, the bourgeoisie are dominant, but not hegemonic.
The BJP’s ability to triangulate nation-state-people into a unified national fantasy, then, is countered by federalism and political societies, such as regional populist parties. But beyond these regional parties, Chatterjee argues that what is needed is a counter-narrative to Hindu nationalism’s claims to cultural homogeneity to bind regional mobilizations together in the center, “a vibrant federal republic.” Such a narrative would realign the relation between peoples-nation and nation-state by making it plural with “several civilizational narratives” (109).
In a strange twist, the very impossibility of unified India—the lack of hegemony—becomes a celebrated feature of India , integrated into the nation itself, rather than calling India into question. In their very impossibility, India’s constitution and democratic culture become redemptive, always already tolerant and inclusive. Chatterjee, therefore, reinscribes the very national fantasy he purports to critique by appropriating the fundamental deadlock in the national fantasy by making it plural and offering a more inclusive and hopeful narrative for India.
Following Chatterjee’s analysis, it is easy to see why the return of coalition politics was celebrated in the aftermath of the election. Coalition politics signals the possibility for coalescing a counter-narrative of peoples-nation and, therefore, a renewed sense of hope that functions within the Indian National Symbolic, no matter India’s sordid history. As Shruti Kapila stated , there was “new-found excitement at the return to old-style political jockeying.” The return of the old India thus becomes the promise of the new India. For Chatterjee , too, “It is time to restore [coalition politics] to its proper place at the centre of our political life.” Restoration and return signal hope for a better India to come—one that was always there.
Chatterjee, therefore, reinscribes the very national fantasy he purports to critique by appropriating the fundamental deadlock in the national fantasy by making it plural and offering a more inclusive and hopeful narrative for India.
Against this hopeful excitement that creates a theoretical distinction between people and state, one must ask: Why focus on “India” at all, especially when there are political movements that reject the idea of India and the fantasies it generates? Why, then, do academics continue to provide unifying narratives for India, reinscribing the aims of a nation-state? At what point do we have to rethink the constant attempt to narrate the history of the Indian nation-state-people(s)? Do we need only more robust histories of the diversity and tolerance of India and its constitution? Or do we have to question the very logic of history since the national imaginary cannot be reduced to historical content—plural or otherwise–but is, instead, history itself ? These are especially important questions since, as Rahul Rao writes, “Calls to protect the Constitution cannot mean much to those who do not wish to be governed by it – unless the Constitution can contemplate a process by which it will no longer be applicable to unwilling subjects.”
Recall that this is a constitution that has entrenched India’s colonial occupation of Kashmir and cemented the second-class citizenship status of Muslims in India. In an article written before he was arrested, the Muslim activist who was involved with the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests in India, Sharjeel Imam, writes of how the “dismal figures among Muslims in relation to poverty, education, employment and political representation clearly demonstrate the lack of foresight regarding the minority issue during the constitution-making process.” He says that this occurred because of the articulation of the country as Bharat (a geographic imaginary derived from Sanskrit texts), which “reflects an exclusively Hindu imagination of Indian history” as well as the lack of safeguards for Muslims in terms of representation, cow protection, and finally, the definition of “schedule castes,” which excluded Muslims and led them to “further impoverishment, as they are hardly supported by any relevant programs for affirmative action at the central state level.” The very foundational moment of India then is premised on exclusion and the binding together of people-nation-state, even if scholars try to imagine otherwise. This binding reveals that the very distinction between the “state” and “political society” that makes it possible to locate hope in the latter is difficult to sustain.
Another recurrent theme amid the celebrations was that the election revealed the limits of communal politics—a politics embodied by Modi and the BJP. During Modi’s re-election campaign, he repeatedly made a number of remarks against Muslims in India, accusing them of being “infiltrators” that depleted resources available to Hindus in order to galvanize his Hindu base. Against this Hindu-nationalist ideology, the return to coalition politics came to be seen as a return to an earlier and more tolerant secularism.
A wider historical view reveals anti-Muslim or minority hate or policies in India are not the sole property of the BJP; such exclusion has defined Indian politics since 1947. The Congress Party has engaged in communalism, and served as a source of violence or domination for minorities, including Muslims, Dalits, and Sikhs, or the occupied in Kashmir. During the election, the Indian National Congress did not directly address the Muslim question in India. In the press conference after election results came out, Rahul Gandhi thanked “the poor and marginalised people who came out to save the constitution. Workers, farmers, Dalits, adivasis [Indigenous] and backwards have helped save this constitution.” It was not lost on Muslims that they were not mentioned, despite the country’s 200 million Muslims coming out in droves to vote for the INDIA alliance, led by the Congress Party. The situation in India is such that an opposition party, ostensibly a party that is against the BJP, cannot even mention Muslims or address their fears and concerns, knowing that it will isolate India’s predominantly Hindu population.
A wider historical view reveals anti-Muslim or minority hate or policies in India are not the sole property of the BJP; such exclusion has defined Indian politics since 1947.
Anthropologist Irfan Ahmad told Al Jazeera English , “Since 2014, this electoral circus has passionately been staging Muslims as a threat against which people are asked to vote. While the BJP issues the threat openly, the non-BJP parties do implicitly: That is by remaining silent. No party has the courage to talk about the violence done to the Muslims.” Sikhs, too, have been violently targeted. Yet this violence was met with silence in the election across India even with the continued criminalization of dissent , arbitrary detentions of foreign nationals , as well as state-orchestrated murder abroad .
Yet a politics of hope that centers an Indian national fantasy means that amidst the flurry of pieces in the wake of the elections, no demands were made of the Congress party or the INDIA alliance to take stock of its communal past and present. Instead, the past and future of India always redeems the violent exclusions in the present. We must ask: If hope remains tethered to an Indian future, is the current iteration of anti-Hindutva politics rooted in a concern for the oppressed and the excluded? If so, how does such a politics contend with the Indian National Congress and India’s “secular” or “liberal” political formations without further entrenching an Indian national fantasy? To be sure, many privileged, upper caste liberal Indians have been embarrassed by the authoritarianism and Hindu nationalism of the prime minister who has harmed the national fantasy of a “democratic India.” The hope that stems from the election is particularly powerful and seductive for them since it keeps alive the “ Incredible India” brand as it provides a route to self-correction: India can return to its original promise, improvements can once again be made.
Against hope, then, it might be time to interrogate these fantasies. If citizenship is marked by exclusions and colonial inclusions (Kashmir, Sikhs, and others), rather than formal granting and the creation of political societies, then India’s impossibility cannot be redeemed in coalition politics or counter-narratives. If violent exclusion and then forceful integration is at the center of India, why does it and its constitution remain the desirous object of history? How can one detach oneself from a hope and world that is not working? To detach oneself is not to escape fantasy altogether. To undo the world while making another, Berlant writes, “requires fantasy to motor programs of action, to distort the present on behalf of what the present can become” (263). But the fantasies generated by the Indian National Symbolic serve to install a singular vision of politics by seamlessly binding together the present with past and future in the promise of tolerance that always eludes.
[1] We draw here from Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship and Manu Goswami, Producing India From Colonial Economy to National Space .
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The plural form of essay is essays. Find more words! Another word for Opposite of Meaning of Rhymes with Sentences with Find word forms Translate from English Translate to English Words With Friends Scrabble Crossword / Codeword Words starting with Words ending with Words containing exactly Words containing letters Pronounce Find conjugations ...
essay in British English. noun (ˈɛseɪ , for senses 2, 3 also ɛˈseɪ ) 1. a short literary composition dealing with a subject analytically or speculatively. 2. an attempt or endeavour; effort. 3. a test or trial.
The meaning of ESSAY is an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view. How to use essay in a sentence. ... Plural and Possessive Names: A Guide. More Commonly Misspelled Words. Your vs. You're: How to Use Them Correctly.
1 essay / ˈ ɛˌseɪ/ noun. plural essays. Britannica Dictionary definition of ESSAY. [count] : a short piece of writing that tells a person's thoughts or opinions about a subject. Your assignment is to write a 500-word essay on one of Shakespeare's sonnets. The book is a collection of his previously unpublished essays on/about a variety of ...
essay in American English. (noun for 1, 2 ˈesei, for 3-5 ˈesei, eˈsei, verb eˈsei) noun. 1. a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. 2. anything resembling such a composition. a picture essay.
essay (plural essays) (authorship) A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject. 2013 January, Katie L. Burke, "Ecological Dependency", in American Scientist [1], volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 9 February 2017, page 64: In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural ...
A plural noun is a noun that refers to more than one of something (as opposed to a singular noun, which refers to just one). Like singular nouns, they may refer to people, animals, things, concepts, or places. Plural nouns are normally formed by adding -s to the singular noun (e.g., the singular "cat" becomes the plural "cats").
2 essay (on something) a short piece of writing on a particular subject, written in order to be published The book contains a number of interesting essays on women in society. 3 essay (in something) ( formal ) an attempt to do something His first essay in politics was a complete disaster.
essay (by somebody) a collection of essays by prominent African American writers; essay on somebody/something The book contains a number of interesting essays on women in society. essay about somebody/something Pierce contributes a long essay about John F. Kennedy. in an essay I discuss this in a forthcoming essay.
Firstly, "Essays" is the plural form of the singular noun "Essay." When we want to refer to more than one essay, we simply add an "s" to the end of the word. This is the conventional English rule for forming plurals of nouns, and it applies to "Essay" as well. For example, "I have written multiple essays on various topics."
ESSAY definition: 1. a short piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one done by students as part of the…. Learn more.
ESSAY meaning: 1. a short piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one done by students as part of the…. Learn more.
Essay definition: A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing.
Essays definition: Plural form of essay. . In the youthful Dutch universities the effect of the essays was greater.
Essay definition: a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.. See examples of ESSAY used in a sentence.
Plural essays. Writing that looks at an issue or subject. Each student had to write an essay on his favorite author. Related words [change] essayist; Verb [change] Plain form essay. Third-person singular essays. Past tense essayed. Past participle essayed. Present participle essaying (transitive) To try. (intransitive) To move forth, as into ...
You might also know that essay can be a verb, with its most common meaning being "to try, attempt, or undertake":. A very close approach to the evil of Idi Amin is essayed in Giles Foden's 1998 novel The Last King of Scotland, whose narrator is the Scottish personal physician to the dictator. — Norman Rush, The New York Review of Books, 7 Oct. 2004 The principal accidents she remembers ...
Forming the Plurals of Nouns In most cases, a noun will form its plural by adding "s" to the singular form. For example: 1 dog > 2 dogs; 1 house > 2 houses; 1 video > 2 videos; The spelling rules for forming the plurals of nouns (e.g., whether to add "s," "es," or "ies") usually depend on how the noun ends.
a "Attornies" is not the plural form of "attorney" because the letter that precedes the "y" is a vowel (i.e., an "e") and not a consonant.In general, do not change nouns that end in "y" to "ies" to make them plural if the letter that precedes the "y" is a vowel; add an "s" to the end of the noun to make it plural.
Pronunciation: ·The plural form of essay; more than one (kind of) essay.··The third-person singular form of essay.
The Chicago Manual of Style, one of the more widely used style guides in the United States, says:. Capital letters used as words, numerals used as nouns, and abbreviations usually form the plural by adding s.To aid comprehension, lowercase letters form the plural with an apostrophe and an s.. So: Dikkens with two Ks, but mind your p's and q's. (And always CDs, unless you're talking about ...
Share to Facebook!Meaning: a short piece of writing on a particular subject. Plural of Essay Singular Plural Essay Essays Synonyms article study piece paper manuscript dissertation discussion thesis Essay as a Singular Noun in Example Sentences: She submitted her essay before the deadline. The student received an A+ on his essay. The teacher assigned a persuasive essay for the assignment. He ...
Put differently, hope reaffirms the life and the narrative of the nation—signing and countersigning an Indian history, both a singular and plural one. Our goal, in contrast, is not to provide a more inclusive understanding of the Indian national fantasy, but to consider the theoretical underpinnings of the post-election relief that continue ...