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Is Zero Singular or Plural?

The Problem

The title pretty much says it all; but I have to elaborate more in order for my question to survive in the website :)

Is zero singular or plural? You can’t say that it is singular becuase singular means 1, if you say it’s plural because you don’t say ‘Zero Gravity’ but ‘Zero Gravities’(just an example), you disagree with dictionaries which say it means more than 1.

Can Somebody tell me which category this exactly falls in?

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  • Does this answer your question? Why is "zero" followed by a plural noun? Note that in examples like zero gravity the expression has a cohesion; 'zero gravity' is actually listed as a compound in dictionaries. The new lexeme need not obey the same rules (for concord, say) as the contributing components. One sports car sits on the drive, two sports cars sit in the garage.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Oct 24, 2021 at 13:58
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    "Zero gravity" is a problematic example because gravity is generally an uncountable noun. In this case it's also getting used as if a unit of measurement (perhaps through not-strictly-accurate substitution for "g-force"?). When we say "Zero-G" out loud, we are vocalizing an abbreviation that takes no plural form: We would say out loud that we have zero grams of flour, but document it as "0 g." So the etymologies of these terms are riddled with technical and linguistic inaccuracies. Let's stick to microgravity!
    – Andy Bonner
    Oct 24, 2021 at 14:20
  • (Also, noting that there could be a colloquial usage of zero with uncountable nouns. It's not unreasonable to imagine someone saying "We have zero flour." If this usage is counter-intuitive, it would be still more bizarre to insist on making the uncountable plural, and say that we have zero flours.
    – Andy Bonner
    Oct 24, 2021 at 14:23

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