A double plural is a

plural form The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

to which an extra suffix has been added, mainly because the original plural suffix (or other variation) had become unproductive and therefore irregular. So the form as a whole was no longer seen as a plural, an instance of

morphological leveling In linguistics, morphological leveling or paradigm leveling is the generalization of an inflection across a linguistic paradigm, a group of forms with the same stem in which each form corresponds in usage to different syntactic environments, or bet ...

. Examples of this can be seen in the history of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

. Historically, the general English plural markers were not only ''-s'' or ''-en'' but also (in certain specific declensions) ''-ra''/''-ru'' (which is still rather general today in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

under the form ''-er''). The ancient plural of ''child'' was "cildra/cildru", to which an ''-en'' suffix was later added when the ''-ra''/''-ru'' became unproductive; the Dutch plural form ''kind-er-en'' and the corresponding

Zeelandic Zeelandic ( zea, Zeêuws; nl, Zeeuws; vls, Zêeuws) is a group of Friso-Franconian language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been mov ...

form ''kind-er-s'' are also double plurals which were formed in the same way as the English double plurals, while for example German and

Limburgian Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neig ...

have (historically conservative) single plurals such as ''Kind-er''. ''Breeches'' is an example involving an old plural that did not use a suffix. It was formerly ''breech'' which came from Old English ''brec'' which was the plural of ''broc''.

References

{{ling-morph-stub Grammatical number Historical linguistics Linguistics