The building blocks of English
Affixes
-ae
Forming plurals.
From a Latin plural suffix, or representing the Greek plural ending ‑ai.
The ‑ae suffix is used for the plural of many non-naturalized, specialist, or unfamiliar nouns ending in ‑a (see ‑a1) derived from Latin or Greek: antennae is the plural of antenna; larvae of larva; scapulae of scapula, a shoulder-blade; pupae of pupa, a chrysalis. It is increasingly common for such words to have plurals in ‑as instead. See also ‑acea, ‑aceous, ‑idae, and ‑inae.
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