There is one ending you can lean on across the entire Greek noun system: the genitive plural is -ων for almost every noun, of every gender. Masculine, feminine, neuter — of the men, of the women, of the children all land on -ων (or its accented cousin -ών, and one learned variant -εων). The article is even simpler: the genitive plural article is των for all three genders, full stop. So the "of the …" of any plural noun is easy to recognise. The hard part — the reason many Greeks quietly avoid the form — is knowing where the stress goes. This page separates the easy ending from the difficult accent, and teaches you the escape hatch native speakers actually use.
The ending is basically always -ων
Take any noun's plural stem, strip the plural nominative ending, and add -ων. The article is των:
| Nominative plural | Genitive plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| οι άνθρωποι | των ανθρώπων | of the people |
| οι γυναίκες | των γυναικών | of the women |
| τα παιδιά | των παιδιών | of the children |
| τα βιβλία | των βιβλίων | of the books |
| οι πόλεις | των πόλεων | of the cities |
Τα δικαιώματα των εργαζομένων δεν είναι διαπραγματεύσιμα.
ta dhikeómata ton erghazoménon dhen íne dhiapraghmatévsima
Workers' rights are not negotiable.
Η γλώσσα των νέων αλλάζει συνεχώς.
i ghlósa ton néon alázi sinechós
Young people's language changes constantly.
Notice how the article των is doing the case-marking work in both. Even if you were unsure of the noun ending, των announces "genitive plural" all by itself — exactly the way του announces genitive singular. Learn the article and half the battle is over. (For where this genitive stands after prepositions, see the genitive after prepositions.)
Now the hard part: where does the stress land;
Greek stress can only sit on one of the last three syllables of a word. When you glue -ων onto a stem, the syllable count often changes, and the accent has to move. There is no single tidy rule that covers every noun — this is one of the genuinely difficult corners of Greek, and even native speakers hesitate. But there are reliable groups, and if you learn the groups you will be right most of the time.
Group 1 — proparoxytones shift forward one syllable. A noun stressed on the third-from-last syllable can't keep the accent there once -ων lengthens the word, so the stress jumps forward to the penult:
| Nominative | Genitive plural |
|---|---|
| ο άνθρωπος | των ανθρώπων |
| το πρόσωπο | των προσώπων |
| το αυτοκίνητο | των αυτοκινήτων |
Ο θόρυβος των αυτοκινήτων με ξυπνάει κάθε πρωί.
o thórivos ton aftokiníton me ksipnái káthe proí
The noise of the cars wakes me up every morning.
Group 2 — the stress lands on the ending itself (-ών). A large, historically-defined set puts the accent right on the final -ών. This includes every neuter noun in -ι/-ί (with no exceptions worth worrying about), the learned neuters in -ος, the first-declension masculines in -ας/-ης, and a big group of feminines:
| Nominative | Genitive plural | Type |
|---|---|---|
| το παιδί | των παιδιών | neuter -ί |
| το σπίτι | των σπιτιών | neuter -ι |
| το κράτος | των κρατών | learned neuter -ος |
| ο πολίτης | των πολιτών | masc. -ης |
| η γυναίκα | των γυναικών | feminine |
| η θάλασσα | των θαλασσών | feminine |
Look hard at η θάλασσα → των θαλασσών: the noun is stressed three syllables back in the singular (θά-λασ-σα), yet the genitive plural throws the stress all the way to the very end. There is no way to predict that from the singular — it is a fact you memorise about this word. The same jump happens in γυναίκα → γυναικών and ώρα → ωρών.
Η γιορτή των παιδιών είναι την Κυριακή.
i yortí ton pedhión íne tin kiriakí
The children's celebration is on Sunday.
Η κυβέρνηση ανακοίνωσε μεγάλη μείωση των δαπανών.
i kivérnisi anakínose megháli míosi ton dhapanón
The government announced a big reduction in expenditure.
The learned -εων plural
A specific class of feminine nouns in -η descends from ancient nouns in -ις (η πόλις → η πόλη). These keep an old-fashioned genitive plural in -εων, with the stress on the antepenult (third from the end):
| Nominative | Genitive plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| η πόλη | των πόλεων | of the cities |
| η δύναμη | των δυνάμεων | of the forces |
| η κυβέρνηση | των κυβερνήσεων | of the governments |
| η τάξη | των τάξεων | of the classes |
These are not archaic — they are the everyday forms. You will hear των πόλεων and των δυνάμεων on the news every night. What trips learners up is the accent: it stays back on the antepenult (δυνάμεων), not on the ending.
Ο δήμαρχος μίλησε για τα προβλήματα των μεγάλων πόλεων.
o dhímarchos mílise ya ta provlímata ton meghálon póleon
The mayor spoke about the problems of big cities.
Η ισορροπία των δυνάμεων στην περιοχή έχει αλλάξει.
i isoropía ton dhinámeon stin periochí échi aláksi
The balance of forces in the region has changed.
The native escape hatch: από + accusative
Here is the honest truth textbooks skip: because the accent is unpredictable, and because some nouns barely have a comfortable genitive plural at all (diminutives, many inanimate objects, uncountables), native speakers routinely avoid the genitive plural and paraphrase with από + the accusative plural. Where English says the caps of the bottles, casual Greek prefers τα καπάκια από τα μπουκάλια over the fussy τα καπάκια των μπουκαλιών.
Πού είναι τα καπάκια από τα μπουκάλια;
pu íne ta kapákia apó ta bukália
Where are the caps for the bottles;
Μάζεψε τα παιχνίδια από τα παιδιά πριν φύγουμε.
mázepse ta pechnídhia apó ta pedhiá prin fíghume
Gather up the kids' toys before we leave.
This is not lazy or wrong — it is idiomatic. The knack is knowing when the genitive plural is fully natural (so you don't over-avoid it) versus when από is smoother:
- Use the genitive plural freely with human/animate nouns and set expressions: των παιδιών, των γονιών, των φοιτητών, των Ελλήνων, των ανθρώπων, των γυναικών, των πολιτών, των ημερών. These roll off the tongue and sound better than a paraphrase.
- Reach for από + accusative with inanimate objects, diminutives, and anything whose stress you're unsure of: το χρώμα από τα λουλούδια, οι ρόδες από τα ποδήλατα, τα κλειδιά από τα αμάξια.
For everything the preposition από does beyond this, see από.
How this differs from English
English marks the possessive plural with a bare apostrophe — the workers' rights, the cities' problems — and it never changes where you stress the word. Greek loads two things onto one ending: the of-meaning and a stress that can leap to the other end of the word (θάλασσα but θαλασσών). An English speaker's instinct is to keep the singular's stress and just add the ending; that instinct is wrong for a whole class of Greek nouns. The accent is not decoration — putting it on the wrong syllable is a spelling error, exactly as misspelling a word would be. This is why the genitive plural, more than any other case, rewards learning each frequent noun as a whole unit; the pattern is laid out further on accent shift in declension.
Common Mistakes
1. Forgetting the accent shift in Group-1 nouns. The stress must move forward off the antepenult.
❌ Τα δικαιώματα των άνθρωπων.
Incorrect — the stress must shift forward: ανθρώπων.
✅ Τα δικαιώματα των ανθρώπων.
ta dhikeómata ton anthrópon
People's rights.
2. Using plain -ων for the learned -εων class. των πόλων is a real word — it means "of the poles" — so the wrong ending changes the meaning.
❌ Τα προβλήματα των πόλων.
Incorrect — 'of the cities' is των πόλεων; των πόλων means 'of the poles'.
✅ Τα προβλήματα των πόλεων.
ta provlímata ton póleon
The problems of the cities.
3. Misplacing the accent inside an -εων form. It stays on the antepenult, not the ending.
❌ Η ισορροπία των δυναμέων.
Incorrect — the stress is on the antepenult: δυνάμεων.
✅ Η ισορροπία των δυνάμεων.
i isoropía ton dhinámeon
The balance of forces.
4. Forcing an awkward genitive plural where από is natural. Native speakers wouldn't torture a diminutive into the genitive.
❌ Μάζεψε τα παιχνίδια των παιδακιών.
Stilted — casual Greek prefers από: τα παιχνίδια από τα παιδάκια.
✅ Μάζεψε τα παιχνίδια από τα παιδάκια.
mázepse ta pechnídhia apó ta pedhákia
Gather up the little ones' toys.
Key Takeaways
- The genitive plural ending is -ων for essentially every noun, and the article is των for all three genders — the ending is the easy part.
- The stress is the hard part. Three groups: proparoxytones shift forward one syllable (ανθρώπων); a large set puts the accent on the ending -ών (παιδιών, γυναικών, θαλασσών); and a learned class takes -εων with the accent on the antepenult (πόλεων, δυνάμεων).
- Every neuter -ι/-ί noun reliably stresses the ending: παιδιών, σπιτιών, χεριών.
- Because the accent is unpredictable, natives paraphrase awkward genitive plurals with από + accusative (τα καπάκια από τα μπουκάλια) — but keep the natural human genitives (των παιδιών, των γονιών).
- Getting the accent wrong is a genuine error, not a stylistic slip — learn the frequent nouns as whole units.
Now practice Greek
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Start learning Greek→Related Topics
- Accent Shift in DeclensionB1 — Why the stress jumps forward when you decline a noun — άνθρωπος but του ανθρώπου, αυτοκίνητο but του αυτοκινήτου, κυβέρνηση but των κυβερνήσεων. The three-syllable law applied systematically, gender by gender, with tables showing exactly which cells move.
- Forming the Genitive SingularA2 — The genitive singular ending for every noun class — masculine -ος→-ου, -ας→-α, -ης→-η; feminine -α→-ας, -η→-ης; neuter -ο→-ου, -ι→-ιού, -μα→-ματος, -ος→-ους — with the article του/της/του and the classic trap of over-keeping the -ς on masculines.