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In the questions I see over and over people ask, "Is this word or noun plural or singular?"

Is there a single word that can be used instead of "plural or singular"?

Is it plurality or singularity?

How about "plingular", "singlural"?

Then someone can say, "What is the plingular of the word geese?" and someone else can say, "It's plural". Or "What is the plingular of the word moose?" and the reply would be, "It's singular".

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  • It's a fun question, but I'm still not quite certain what you're asking. Do you mean something like the word fish is singlural in that it's both plural and singular? Otherwise the standard question is "singular or plural?" as no one has felt the need to come up with a single term to cover both cases.
    – Andrew
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 14:42
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    "...as no one has felt the need to come up with a single term to cover both cases" ...until now.
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 23:25

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You're referring to the concept of grammatical number. So, in a grammatical context, you might ask

What is the number of the word geese?

However, this probably wouldn't be understood in everyday speech, so you'd be better off asking

Is geese singular or plural?

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  • So if you were in a room of grammerists do they say, "What is the grammatical number of geese?" Would someone reply "Plural" or would they say "Multiple"?
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 17:44
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    The answer would be "plural". In other languages, dual (exactly 2), trial (exactly 3) and paucal (relatively few) are other possible answers to the question "What is the number of the word _______?"
    – jsheeran
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 17:56

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