What is the Plural Form of the Word Turkey?

The Thanksgiving holiday is a time for gathering with friends and family to feast on a delicious roasted turkey But if you’re cooking more than one turkey, what is the correct plural form to use? You may have heard both “turkeys” and “turkies” used, but only one is grammatically correct.

The Plural of Turkey is Turkeys

The plural form of the noun turkey is turkeys. This follows the general rule for forming plurals in English.

Here are some examples of turkeys used in a sentence:

• The turkeys were basting in the oven, filling the house with a mouthwatering aroma.

• We ordered three 20-pound turkeys to feed everyone at the family reunion

• The farmer raised over 500 turkeys on his poultry farm this year.

• Be sure to remove the plastic wrappers from the turkeys before roasting

• The wild turkeys were wandering through the backyard looking for fallen acorns to eat.

So turkeys is the proper way to pluralize turkey, not turkies.

Why Turkies is Incorrect

Some people mistakenly believe that all words ending in Y should form their plural by replacing the Y with IES. But that is not a universal rule in English.

The IES plural only applies to nouns ending in a consonant plus Y, like:

• Lady -> Ladies
• Baby -> Babies
• Story -> Stories

With turkey, the Y is preceded by a vowel (the E in KEY). So according to the rules, you simply add S to form the plural turkeys.

A Helpful Table of Pluralization Rules

Here is a summary of the rules for forming plurals in English:

So based on the vowel + Y rule, the plural of turkey is turkeys.

Exceptions to the Rules

Of course, there are always exceptions in English. Some plurals don’t follow any set rules, like:

• Man -> Men
• Mouse -> Mice
• Child -> Children

Luckily, turkey is not one of the irregular ones. The standard pluralization rules apply.

A Few Other Turkey Plurals

While the main noun is turkeys, there are a couple other turkey-related words with interesting plurals:

• Tom turkey -> Tom turkeys
• Hen turkey -> Hen turkeys
• Turkey egg -> Turkey eggs
• Turkey feather -> Turkey feathers
• Turkey foot -> Turkey feet

The animal itself takes turkeys as the plural, but other turkey-related nouns follow their own plural rules.

Summary

Frequency of Entities:
turkey: 28
plural: 16
turkeys: 13
nouns: 7
ending: 6
rules: 6
form: 5
english: 4
correct: 3
vowel: 3
add: 3
letter: 2
incorrect: 2
consonant: 2
ies: 2
y: 2
s: 2
pluralize: 1
replace: 1
app: 1
lady: 1
baby: 1
story: 1
key: 1
summary: 1
table: 1
book: 1
dog: 1
bus: 1
dress: 1
hero: 1
potato: 1
patio: 1
embryo: 1
chimney: 1
wolf: 1
knife: 1
man: 1
men: 1
mouse: 1
mice: 1
child: 1
children: 1
tom: 1
hen: 1
egg: 1
feather: 1
foot: 1
feet: 1
knowledge: 1
confidence: 1
mouthwatering: 1
aroma: 1