| OE. | ME. | |
| Sg. nom. acc. | cniht | kniȝt |
| gen. | cnihtes | kniȝtes |
| dat. | cnihte | kniȝte |
| OE. | ME. | |
| Pl. nom. acc. | cnihtas | kniȝtes |
| gen. | cnihta | kniȝtes |
| dat. | cnihtum | kniȝtes |
In the North final -e of the dat. sg. was regularly dropped early in the fourteenth century, and even in the South the dat. sg. is often uninflected, probably owing to the influence of the accusative. In the plural the inflexion of the nom. acc. spreads to all cases; but in early texts, and relatively late in the South, the historical forms are occasionally found, e.g. gen. pl. cniste (MS. cnistes) XV g 30 (note), dat. pl. diaknen III 5.
Survivals: (i) The common mutated plurals man: men, fot: fet, &c., are preserved, and in VIII b a gen. pl. menne (OE. manna) occurs; ky pl. of cow forms a new double pl. kyn, see (iii) below; hend pl. of hand is Norse, cp. XVI 75 (note).
(ii) Some OE. neuters like shep 'sheep' VIII b 18, ȝer 'year' II 492, þing II 218, folk II 389, resist the intrusion of the masculine pl. -es in nominative and accusative. Pl. hors II 304, XIII a 34 remains beside horses XIV b 73; but deores 'wild animals' occurs at XV b 29, where Modern English preserves deer.
(iii) In the South the old weak declension with pl. -en persists, though by the fourteenth century the predominance of the strong type is assured. The weak forms occur not only where they are historically justified, e.g. eyȝen (OE. ēagan) II 111, but also by analogy in words like honden (OE. pl. honda) II 79, tren (OE. pl. trēo) XIII a 51, platen (OFr. plate) XV g 4. The inflexion still survives in three double plural formations: children VIII b 70 beside childer (OE. pl. cildru); bretheren VIII a 201 beside brether XVII 320 (OE. pl. brōþor); and kyȝn IX 256 for ky (cp. (i) above). The OE. weak gen. pl. in -ena leaves its traces in the South, e.g. knauene VIII b 56, XV h 4, and unhistorical lordene VIII b 77.
(iv) The group fader, moder, broþer, doghter commonly show the historical flexionless gen. sg., e.g. doghtyr arme I 136; moder wombe XI b 29 f.; brother hele XII a 18; Fadir voice XVI 79.
(v) The historical gen. sg. of old strong feminines remains in soule dede (OE. sāwle) I 212; but Lady day (OE. hlǣfdigan dæg) I 242 is a survival of the weak fem. gen. sg.
§ 11. ADJECTIVES. Separate flexional forms for each gender are not preserved in the fourteenth century; but until its end the distinction of strong and weak declensions remains in the South and South Midlands, and is well marked in the careful verse of Chaucer and Gower. The strong is the normal form. The weak form is used after demonstratives, the, his, &c., and in the vocative. As types god (OE. gōd) 'good' and grene (OE. grēne) 'green' will serve, because in OE. grēne had a vowel-ending in the strong nom. sg. masc., while gōd did not. The ME. paradigms are:
| Singular. | Plural. | |
| Strong | Weak | Strong and Weak |
| god | god | godė |
| grenė | grenė | grenė |
Examples: Strong sg. a gret serpent (OE. grēat) XII b 72; an unkindė man (OE. uncynde) XII b 1; a stillė water (OE. stille) XII a 83. Weak sg. The gretė gastli serpent XII b 126; hire oghnė hertes lif XII a 4; O lef liif (where the metre indicates leuė for the original) II 102. Strong pl. þer wer widė wones II 365. Weak pl. the smalė stones XII a 84.