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Old 08-16-2023, 09:55 AM
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Default Plural of virus "vira"??? Too off topic?

Never understood using "virii" as a plural of "virus. Figured "viri" made some sense, but guess that would actually mean "men". Only just now got around to googling it. Not what I expected to find. Don't recall such a thing as a "neuter noun" - at least not one that ended in "us".

From What Is the Plural of Virus?.

It is common knowledge that the plurals of many words from Latin end in "-a" or "-i." Data, for instance, is the plural of datum and alumni is the plural of an alumnus. Is the plural of virus viri and if not, why?

Neuter and Masculine Nouns
​Latin neuters end in "-a" in the plural for the nominative and accusative cases:

Datum > data
Singular > plural
The plural of "virus" is "viruses" in English. Virus is a neuter noun in Latin. That means its plural, if there were an attested ancient usage of virus in the plural, would have ended in an "-a," because neuter nouns in (ancient Greek and) Latin end in an "-a" in the plural nominative and accusative cases. The example of the plural of datum is a case in point. Since datum is a neuter singular, its plural is data.

Since virus is neuter, vira is a possibility for the nominative/accusative plural. It could not be viri. Second declension masculine nouns end in "-i" in the nominative plural:

Alumnus > alumni
Singular > plural
Viri is the plural of the masculine second declension noun vir, which means "man." Vir is a masculine noun and the "-i" ending is appropriate for the plural nominative of masculine second declension nouns.

"Virus," by the way, can refer either an "infectious agent" or a computer program that "is usually disguised as an innocuous program or file," which inserts a copy of itself into another program "that when run usually performs a malicious action," Merriam-Webster notes.