Related Terms
The term for a noun which appears only in the singular form is singulare tantum (plural: singularia tantum); for example, the English words "information", "dust", and "wealth". Singulare tantum is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as: "Gram. A word having only a singular form; esp. a non-count noun." In the English language, such words are almost always uncountable nouns. Some non-count nouns can be alternatively used as count nouns meaning "a type of", in which case the plural means "more than one type of" (for example, strength is uncountable in Strength is power but can be used as a countable noun meaning type of strength as in My strengths are in physics and chemistry). Some words - especially proper nouns, such as the full name of an individual - are nearly always in the singular because only one example exists of what the noun means.
Read more about this topic: Plurale Tantum
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