The Declension of Plural Nouns in the Russian Language

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The Declension of Plural Nouns

There is no strict distinction between declensions of plural nouns in Russian. The charts below sum up the endings for plural nouns and give examples.

First declension

Cases	Plural nouns endings	Examples *
Nominative	-ы, -и	страны	лилии
Genitive	-й	стран	лилий
Dative	-ам, -ям	странам	лилиям
Accusative	-ы, -и	страны	лилии
Instrumental	-ами, -ями	странами	лилиями
Prepositional	-ах, -ях	(о) странах	(о) лилиях

* Stressed vowels are underlined. Endings are in bold.

Second declension

Cases	Plural nouns endings	Examples *
Nominative	-а	окна	города
Genitive	-ов	окон	городов
Dative	-ам	окнам	городам
Accusative	-а	окна	города
Instrumental	-ами	окнами	городами
Prepositional	-ах	(об) окнах	(о) городах

Third declension

Cases	Plural nouns endings	Examples *
Nominative	-и	ладони
Genitive	-й	ладоней
Dative	-ям	ладоням
Accusative	-и	ладони
Instrumental	-ями	ладонями
Prepositional	-ях	(о) ладонях

As you can see from the charts, the nouns of all three declensions have the same endings in the dative, instrumental and prepositional cases.

In the nominative and accusative cases, the plural nouns may have the endings:

-ы/-и -- typical of nouns of any declension
-а/-я -- typical of second declension nouns only (берега, озёра, моря)

Learn the plural nouns which get the ending -ы in the nominative: волосы (hair), договоры (contracts), выборы (elections), инженеры (engineers), конструкторы (constructors), офицеры (officers), слесари (fitters), торты (cakes), тракторы (tractors), шофёры (drivers).