Hippopotamuses is the more common plural of the two. Nowadays, however, native English speakers are more drawn to hippopotamuses, which adheres to the standard ruling for forming plurals. Why Is There Confusion over the Plural of Hippopotamus?Ĭonfusion arises over the plural of hippopotamus because the erroneously assigned Latin plural hippopotami grew in popularity, most probably because it sounds funny and clever. Some nouns undergo a vowel or letters change (There are no rules for this - you have to know.) The table below shows the standard rules for forming the plurals of nouns in English. The Standard Rules for Forming the Plurals The shortened version hippos is often used in informal writing to avoid to making a decision on hippopotamuses and hippopotami. A male rhinoceros is called a bull, a female a cow, and the young a calf a group of rhinoceros is called a 'crash'. The plural hippopotamuses (which adheres to the standard rules for forming plurals) is more common than hippopotami. The rhinoceros (commonly called rhino for short plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses) is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Find more words True to her style, even in those movements she was more a wild gazelle than a stampeding rhinoceros. In rare, nonstandard, contexts, the plural form can also be rhinoceroses. Hippopotami is also used by some as a joke plural.) The plural form of rhinoceros is also rhinoceros. It is therefore ironic that the term is based on an error.
(Of note, the word hippopotami is often used by pedants with a highbrow tone, believing it to be correct. Nevertheless, the word hippopotami has become an acceptable plural for hippopotamus. So, the plural form hippopotami is technically an error. Though they are bulky animals, hippopotami can gallop at 19 mph on land.Įven though the noun hippopotamus has a Greek root, it is often assigned the Latin plural hippopotami.
Hippopotamuses live in groups of up to thirty.The plural of hippopotamus is hippopotamuses or hippopotami.