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agenda: agenda: [17] Agenda is the plural of Latin agendum, which is the gerundive form of the verb agere ‘do’ (see AGENT); it thus means literally ‘things to be done’. When the word first entered the language it was given an anglicized singular form, agend, with the plural agends, but this seems to have disappeared by the 18th century. The formal plurality of agenda is still often insisted on by purists, but it has been used as a singular noun since the mid 18th century.
=> act, agent
bible: bible: [13] Greek ta biblía meant literally ‘the books’. This was borrowed into ecclesiastical Latin as biblia, where the plural form came to be misanalysed as a feminine singular; hence Old French, and through it English, received bible as a singular noun. Greek biblía itself was the plural of biblíon ‘book’ (whence English bibliography [17]), which was originally a diminutive form of bíblos or búblos. This was used for ‘book’, and for the book’s forerunners, such as scrolls and papyri. It may come from Bublos, an ancient Phoenician port from which papyrus was exported to Greece.
=> bibliography
debt: debt: [13] Debt originated as dēbita, the plural of Latin dēbitum ‘that which is owed’, a noun formed from the past participle of the verb dēbēre ‘owe’. In Vulgar Latin, dēbita was evidently viewed as a feminine singular noun, and it passed thus into Old French as dette, the form in which English originally acquired the word. From the 13th to the 16th centuries the French spelling was latinized as debte, a reform which English adopted in the 16th century.

In the 15th century English independently borrowed Latin dēbitum as debit. (Latin dēbēre ‘owe’, source also of English debenture, due, and duty, was originally a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘away’ and habēre ‘have’, literally ‘have away’, that is, ‘keep in one’s possession what belongs to someone else’.)
=> debenture, due, duty, endeavour
feast: feast: [13] The notion of ‘eating’ is a secondary semantic development for feast, whose underlying meaning (as may be guessed from the related festival [14] and festivity [14]) has more to do with joyousness than with the appeasement of hunger. Its ultimate source is the Latin adjective festus, which meant ‘joyful, merry’. This was used as a plural noun, festa, meaning ‘celebratory ceremonies, particularly of a religious nature’, which came down to Old French as feste.

This was the source of English feast, and its modern French descendant gave English fête [18]. Incidentally, the sense ‘sumptuous meal’, present in feast but not in fête, goes back to the Latin singular noun festum. Also related is festoon [17], acquired via French from Italian festone, which originally meant ‘ornament for a festive occasion’; and fair (as in fairground) comes ultimately from Latin fēria, first cousin to festus.
=> fair, festival, festoon, fête
operate: operate: [17] Operate belongs to a small family of English words that trace their history back to Latin opus ‘work’, which may be related to Sanskrit ápas ‘work’, Old English afol ‘power’, and Latin ops ‘wealth’ (source of English copious, copy, and opulent [17]). Its most direct English descendant is of course opus [18] itself, which was originally adopted in the phrase magnum opus ‘great work’. Opera [17] goes back to the Latin plural, which came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun meaning ‘that which is produced by work’.

Italian gave it its musical sense, and passed it on to English. Operate itself came from the past-participial stem of the derived Latin verb operārī ‘work’. It was originally used in English for ‘produce an effect’, and the transitive sense, as in ‘operate a machine’, did not emerge until as recently as the mid-19th century, in American English. The surgical sense is first recorded in the derivative operation [16] at the end of the 16th century.

Other English descendants of opus include cooperate [17] and manoeuvre.
=> copious, copy, manoeuvre, opera, opulent
trousers: trousers: [17] Trousers is a Gaelic contribution to English vocabulary. Irish trius and Scots Gaelic triubhas (singular nouns) denote ‘closefitting shorts’. They were borrowed into English in the 16th century as trouse or trews. The latter form has survived intact, but trouse, through the influence of drawers, was expanded into trousers.
=> trews
tweezers: tweezers: [17] French étui denotes a small case for carrying personal articles, small tools and the like (it was descended from Old French estuier ‘keep, shut up, imprison’). English adopted it in the early 17th century as etui or, anglicized, as etwee. The plural of this came to be used (like scissors) for a single article, and it did not take long for etweese to be apprehended as a singular noun.

The next step in the word’s transformation was the loss of its first syllable: hence, tweeze. This still meant ‘case for small instruments’, and the plural tweezes began to be used for the instruments themselves – typically implements of personal adornment, such as combs, scissors and small pincers for pulling out hairs. By the 1650s tweezes had been extended to tweezers (perhaps on the model of scissors), and this was being applied specifically to the pincers – as it still is today.
-ae: occasional plural suffix of words ending in -a, most of which, in English, are from Latin nominative fem. singular nouns, which in Latin form their plurals in -ae. But plurals in -s were established early in English for many of them (such as idea, arena) and many have crossed over since. Now it is not possible to insist on purity one way or the other without breeding monsters.
kudos (n.): "fame, renown," 1799, probably originally in university slang, from Greek kydos "glory, fame," especially in battle, literally "that which is heard of," from PIE root *skeue- "to pay attention, perceive" (see caveat). A singular noun in Greek, but the final -s often is mistaken as a plural suffix in English, leading to the barbarous back-formation kudo (attested by 1936).
mathematic (n.): late 14c. as singular noun, replaced by early 17c. by mathematics, from Latin mathematica (plural), from Greek mathematike tekhne "mathematical science," feminine singular of mathematikos (adj.) "relating to mathematics, scientific, astronomical; disposed to learn," from mathema (genitive mathematos) "science, knowledge, mathematical knowledge; a lesson," literally "that which is learnt;" related to manthanein "to learn," from PIE root *mendh- "to learn" (cognates: Greek menthere "to care," Lithuanian mandras "wide-awake," Old Church Slavonic madru "wise, sage," Gothic mundonsis "to look at," German munter "awake, lively"). As an adjective, 1540s, from French mathématique or directly from Latin mathematicus.
molasses (n.): 1580s, from Portuguese melaço, from Late Latin mellaceum "new wine," properly neuter of mellaceus "resembling honey," from Latin mel (genitive mellis) "honey" (see Melissa). Adopted in English in plural form, but regarded as a singular noun.
veil (n.): c. 1200, "nun's head covering," from Anglo-French and Old North French veil (12c., Modern French voile) "a head-covering," also "a sail, a curtain," from Latin vela, plural of velum "sail, curtain, covering," from PIE root *weg- (1) "to weave a web." Vela was mistaken in Vulgar Latin for a feminine singular noun. To take the veil "become a nun" is attested from early 14c.
fives: "A game, played especially in the UK, in which a ball is hit with a gloved hand or a bat against the walls of a court with three walls ( Eton fives) or four walls ( Rugby fives)", Mid 17th century: plural of five used as a singular noun; the significance is unknown.