Irregular Nouns

A - Nouns

These are the nouns that have the ending -a in inflected forms of the singular, and the nominative/accusative plural.  There aren't really any distinguishing features to set these nouns apart from others, so one must memorize them.

Masculine

Case / Number Singular Plural
Nominative sunu suna
Genitive suna suna
Dative suna sunum
Instrumental suna sunum
Accusative sunu suna
Notice that in the masculine, the genitive, dative, and instrumental have the same endings in the singular, and in the plural, the nominative, accusative, and genitive have the same endings.  One must use the definite article to tell the function of the noun in the sentence.

 
Masculine A-Nouns Feminine A-Nouns
æppel – apple
bregu – prince, ruler
eard – native country
feld – field
ford – ford
gár – spear (mostly in compounds)
hád – rank, condition
hearg – temple
heoru - sword
lagu – sea, flood
magu – son, man
medu - mead
meodu – mead
séað – pit, spring
sidu - custom
spitu - spit
sumor – summer
sunu - son
weald – forest
winter – winter
wudu – wood

cin(n) - chin
cweorn – hand-mill
duru – door
flór – floor
hand – hand
nosu – nose

 


A-Nouns are declined alike, both masculine and feminine.  If the word ends in -u, then drop the -u, and add the -a or -um endings as necessary.  This type of noun is different from normal, since normal feminine nouns must add -e in the accusative.

Former Masculine and Neuter A-Nouns

In prehistoric Old English, there were more A-Nouns, but they changed to regular nouns by the time OE was written down.  The -oð nouns, and two neuter nouns, amongst others, no longer decline as A-nouns do.

Masculine Neuter

ár – messenger
beofor – beaver
déað – death
esol – ass
feorh – life (also neuter)
fiscoð – fishing
flód – flood
grund – ground
hungor – hunger
huntoð – hunting (and other –oð nouns)
lust – pleasure, desire
scield – shield
þorn – thorn

feoh - cattle
feolu - much, many