Weak Nouns

Weak nouns are considered grammatically weak because there is little variation in how they decline. Just like weak adjectives, almost all weak nouns end in 'an', the exceptions being the nominative singular, genitive plural, and dative plural endings. Examine the sentence below, 'Þa huntan hierdon þa hearpan - the hunters heard the harps'.

Only the nominative singular and neuter accusative forms differ between genders, and there are only two weak neuter nouns: 'eage - eye' and 'eare - ear'. All other weak nouns are either masculine or feminine.

As you can see, there is not much variation between weak nouns which makes their declensions easy to learn. One way of identifying a weak noun is that their nominative form often ends in a vowel (except 'u', which is either strong feminine or minor u-declension). For example, 'mona - moon', 'sunne - sun', and 'steorra - star' are all weak. In a dictionary, you will either find these nouns labelled as 'weak' or with -an following the entry. You can practice weak nouns below.

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