Meat or Meats? Which is the correct plural?

Vocabulary / By

Meat is usually used as an uncountable noun which means that the plural of meat is also meat. We use “meats” as the plural when we want to emphasize that we are talking about different types of meat.

There is a lot of meat on the table.

We have a selection of meats for the staff.

Is meat countable or uncountable?

“Meat” is usually used as an uncountable noun. The plural of an uncountable noun is usually the same as the singular.

Countable nouns are nouns that you can count easily. Some examples include pens, cars, and houses. For countable nouns, we add an “s” to make them plural.

I have one bike.

I have two bikes.

Uncountable nouns are nouns that are usually difficult to count or you don’t count them with numbers 1,2,3,4 etc.

I need a great deal of meat for the party.

When to use Meats

Even though we often use “meat” as the plural form of “meat” we also use “meats” sometimes. We use “meat” when want to show that there are different types of meat. Some examples of different types of meat are salami, chorizo, turkey etc. 

There are 6 meats to choose from. 

There are so many meats in the world. 

In these examples, “kinds of” or “types of” are implied. 

There are 6 kinds of meat to choose from. 

There are so many types of meats in the world.

Conor
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