Guide · Grammar
Old English noun declension classes
Old English nouns are divided into strong and weak declensions, with a few minor classes outside both. A strong noun keeps a thematic vowel (a, ō, i, u) that shows up in the endings; a weak noun builds on a nasal -an- stem. Gender is separate from this split.
The practical test is the genitive singular and the nominative plural. Strong a-stem masculines such as cyning take -es and -as; strong ō-stem feminines such as lufu take -e and -a. Weak nouns such as nama and tunge end in -an through most of the singular and the plural. If the oblique cases end in -an, the noun is weak.
Strong and weak side by side
| Noun | Class | Genitive singular | Nominative plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| cyning | strong a-stem | cyninges | cyningas |
| lufu | strong ō-stem | lufe | lufa |
| nama | weak n-stem | naman | naman |
| tunge | weak n-stem | tungan | tungan |
Forms as they appear on the four entry pages. A noun can belong to more than one class when it carries several senses, so the class pages count headwords, not dictionary entries.
Gender is a separate question
Strong and weak describe how a noun inflects, not what it means. A-stems are masculine or neuter, ō-stems are feminine, and the weak n-stems include all three genders. Each entry page gives the gender next to the part of speech, and the class page lists the gender of its representative noun.
Minor classes
A few nouns fall outside the two main groups: i-stems, u-stems and consonant stems, plus the irregular nouns that change their root vowel in the plural, such as fōt / fēt and mann / menn. The dictionary keeps every class on its own page, with a full paradigm and the member list.
Every class this dictionary builds
The table lists the 28 classes the dictionary builds, ordered by size. The labels are Wiktionary's own inflection-table type strings, not a site taxonomy; spellings that differ only in capitalisation or line breaks are merged on one page. Counts are source records, so a headword with two table-bearing senses counts twice.
| Class | Headwords | Records | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| strong a-stem | 3,296 | 3,378 | bog |
| strong ō-stem | 1,760 | 1,779 | agu |
| weak | 901 | 917 | læssa |
| strong i-stem | 543 | 545 | rec |
| weak n-stem | 532 | 538 | albe |
| strong ja-stem | 306 | 308 | esne |
| strong consonant stem | 150 | 151 | man |
| strong nd-stem | 109 | 110 | agend |
| strong u-stem | 49 | 49 | hand |
| strong | 25 | 26 | laþost |
| strong wa-stem | 24 | 24 | horu |
| strong īn-stem | 24 | 24 | engu |
| strong u-stem/a-stem | 14 | 14 | eard |
| strong z-stem | 12 | 12 | hæl |
| strong wō-stem | 7 | 7 | ræs |
| consonant stem, irregular | 5 | 5 | ealu |
| irregular | 5 | 5 | gefær |
| strong wō/ō-stem | 4 | 4 | læs |
| ja-stem | 3 | 3 | amber |
| strong class 6 | 3 | 3 | ofersteppan |
| indeclinable | 2 | 2 | Ispania |
| strong class 3 | 2 | 2 | geondyrnan |
| i-stem | 1 | 1 | wini |
| n- stem, irregular | 1 | 1 | Ingwi |
| participle | 1 | 1 | geþungen |
| Strong u-stem, irregular | 1 | 1 | os |
| u-stem | 1 | 1 | Ing |
| ō-stem | 1 | 1 | Arabia |
Some labels come from adjectives or verbs rather than nouns: the bare strong and weak labels, participle, and the two
strong class labels. Their class pages show the paradigm that Wiktionary
actually records.
Where to go next
- How to read and type the letters — þ, ð, æ, ƿ and macrons.
- Which Old English dictionary to use — Bosworth–Toller, Wiktionary and this site.
- Bēowulf, line by line, with every word linked to its entry.
- The same paradigm data for programs: MCP server and JSON API.
Last updated 8 November 2026. Class labels and counts come from the Wiktionary data build described on Attribution.