Learn English – the plural form of “magic”

countabilityplural-forms

Wiktionary claims it is "magics", from how I read its page, but e.g. Ask.com claims it has no plural form. Considering that Wiktionary also claims that it is "usually uncountable", are there only certain situations it has a plural form in?

Best Answer

If you're referring to the idea in general, it's not countable. There's nothing to count. "Someone who practices magic", "friendship is magic", or "magic powers this device" would all fit this pattern.

However, if you're referring to some specific kind, it's countable. So "the magics of necromancy and enchantment" is legitimate: it's referring to two different but related things. (Similarly, "the peoples of England and Scotland" refers to each separate group of people, and "the monies allocated were spent primarily in two ways" does the same thing for "money".) This is not a very common usage, though, since for most purposes there's really no reason to make a distinction between different kinds of something that's imaginary anyway.

Or here's another example:

Ain's machine was built under the Black Spike surrounded by deep water, a work of genius tainted by madness. They had called it the Sixth Magic. No matter its power; it was flawed and unclean from the beginning. Mael's last accomplishment was supposed to elevate the magics above the stain of Ain's madness.

(Source: The Seventh Magic)

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