Laches, from the French lachesse, is still retained in the law stile; but custom has abbreviated the word into lache, a single syllable.
Amends may properly be considered as in the singular number, and so it is used by one of our best writers. "They must needs think that this honor to him, when dead, was but a necessary amends for the injury which they had done him, when living."——Middleton's L. of Cic. vol. 3. p. 131.
The idea here conveyed by amends is as single as that expressed by compensation. The word has no change of termination, and may be considered as singular or plural, at the choice of the writer.
Wages is a word of the same kind.
Victuals is derived from the old French vitaille,[97] and was formerly used in the singular form, victual. But the latter is now wholly disused, and victuals generally used with a singular verb and pronoun. So Swift uses the word. "We had such very fine victuals that I could not eat it."[98] The editor of his works remarks, that here is false concord; but I believe Swift has followed the general practice of the English. The word seems to have lost the plurality of ideas, annexed to many different articles included in the term, and to have assumed the general meaning of the word food, which does not admit of the plural.
The word odds seems to be of the same kind. We sometimes find a plural verb united to it, as in Pope's translation of Homer:
"On valor's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die."
Iliad, b. 15. l. 670.
But in common practice odds is considered as in the singular number. We always say, "What is the odds;" and I should rank this among the words, which, altho they have the termination of regular plurals, more properly belong to the singular number.
The word gallows is evidently of this class. "Let a gallows be made," say the translators of the Bible, with perfect propriety. Indeed I cannot conceive how any man who has read English authors, can consider this word as in the plural.