Plural of status

Statuses or status?

Reader’s question: What is the correct plural of status?

Answer: Pam Peters, The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, says:

‘In English usage status has both an anglicized plural statuses and the (zero) plural status. The second results from its being a Latin fourth declension noun … but also correlates with English use of the word as a mass noun, as in considering their relative status.’

So status and statuses can both be used as the plural, depending on the context, but status is more common.

The survey considered participants’ viewpoints, social status and demographics.
The survey considered participants’ viewpoints, social statuses and demographics.

Statii and stati are not plurals of status!

Other -us Latin fourth declension nouns include: apparatus, census, hiatus, nexus, prospectus, sinus.

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