Plural of “party”

The plural of party is parties.

Why

"Party" comes from Old French "partie," a part or side, ultimately from Latin "partire," to divide — the word originally described a group forming one side of something divided, whether a faction, a side in a legal dispute, or eventually a social gathering. As a consonant-plus-y noun, it takes the standard -ies plural.

The word's three modern senses — a political party, a legal party to a contract, and a social celebration — all trace back to the same underlying idea of a distinct group or side, even though they now feel like unrelated meanings in everyday use; all three senses share the identical plural form "parties" regardless of which meaning is intended. Middle French "partie" itself was a feminine past participle of "partir," to divide or depart, and English absorbed the noun sense directly while largely leaving behind the verb's other meaning, which survives instead in the unrelated English "depart."

Usage note

From birthday celebrations to political factions to the parties named in a legal contract, "parties" covers every sense of the word without any spelling variation between meanings. Legal writing often further specifies with phrases like "the parties hereto" or "third parties," fixed formal constructions where "parties" functions with precise contractual meaning distinct from its everyday social sense.

The political-party sense of the word is a relatively late development in English, emerging in the 17th century as organized factions began forming in Parliament, centuries after the earlier senses of "a divided part or side" and "a group gathered for a purpose" were already established. In American political journalism, "the parties" used without further qualification almost always refers specifically to the two dominant national parties, a narrowed, context-dependent use of the plural that would need clarification in countries with genuine multi-party systems, where "parties" more literally covers several distinct organizations rather than an implied pair. The celebratory sense, meanwhile, is documented in English only from the 18th century onward, considerably later than the legal and political senses, suggesting the word drifted toward describing a social gathering by extension from the earlier idea of a group assembled together for a shared purpose, rather than the celebratory sense coming first.

Common real mistakes

Writers occasionally drop the -ies ending under the influence of the singular's ending sound, producing "partys," a straightforward misspelling rather than any genuine grammatical ambiguity. A separate, non-spelling confusion arises in legal contexts between "party" (a formal signatory or litigant) and "person," since a legal "party" can be a corporation, government body, or other non-human entity — a distinction that matters for precision even though both pluralize normally as countable nouns.

The wider pattern

"Party" follows the identical consonant-plus-y pattern as "city" and "baby," and its three unrelated modern meanings — social, political, and legal — are a useful reminder that a word's plural spelling stays fixed even when the underlying meaning shifts dramatically across contexts.

Examples

• Both parties agreed to the terms of the contract.
• She's planning three separate birthday parties this month.
• Political parties clashed over the proposed legislation.
• The wedding parties arrived at the venue an hour early.
• Search parties combed the woods for the missing hiker.
• Several parties expressed interest in buying the property.
• The two parties finally reached a settlement after months of talks.
• Neighborhood parties are held every summer on the block.
• Rival parties dominated the election coverage all week.
• The lawsuit named four separate parties as defendants.
• Both parties signed the revised agreement without objection.
• Retirement parties were held for three longtime employees that month.
• The organizers coordinated three separate parties into one large event.
• Both parties later denied any wrongdoing in the dispute.
• The venue hosted two competing parties on the same weekend.