Word.ws English Dictionary

-ren

-ren suffix: used to form the plural of nouns.

Suffix

-ren

  1. (humorous, nonstandard) Used to form the plural of nouns
    • As Ciddy and child had slept soundly under Omeriah's roof, a group of young "kidren" playing outside sang a "ring song" […]2006, Timothy White, Catch a fire: the life of Bob Marley
    • Unruly kidren would fling rockstone after him.2006, Alex Wheatle, Island songs

Origin of -ren

In standard language, a back-formation from children and brethren. In dialectal usage, from Middle English -ren, -eren (compounded plural ending), from Middle English -re, -ere (from Old English -ru (plural ending)) + Middle English -en (from Old English -an (plural ending)).

Questions about -ren

What does -ren mean?
-ren means used to form the plural of nouns.
What part of speech is -ren?
-ren is a suffix.

Words near -ren in the dictionary

  1. -rd
  2. -rds
  3. -red
  4. -rel
  5. -relin
  6. -ren
  7. -renone
  8. -reotide
  9. -ress
  10. -resse
  11. -retin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ren (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “-ren.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ren. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.