Voters Choose 'Prii' as Plural for Prius

TORRANCE, CA - Toyota Motor Sales USA on Feb. 20 announced that the general public has selected "Prii" as the preferred plural term for Prius. 

The "Prius Goes Plural" voting campaign was launched on Jan.10 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit and challenged the public to help the automaker determine the plural nomenclature of Prius. The campaign coincided with the world premiere of the Toyota Prius family of vehicles. With 25 percent of the votes, "Prii" becomes the word not only endorsed by the public who chose it, but also as the term recognized by Toyota. As such, Dictionary.com has updated its entry for the word "Prius" to reflect this. 

Toyota unveiled the winning word at the Chicago Auto Show. Jay Schwartz, head of content for Dictionary.com, was on hand to inform the public that since the plural of Prius has now been determined, the term 'Prii' will be reflected in Dictionary.com.

After more than 1.8 million votes were cast during the course of the six-week campaign, Prii beat out its four competitors: Prius, Priuses, Prium and Prien. Prius came in at a close second with 24 percent of the votes. A video recap of the campaign and winning word celebration can be viewed at www.ToyotaPriusProjects.com.

The plural of Prius has sparked debates since the launch of the vehicle 10 years ago. Now that the Prius family has grown, Toyota asked its customers to help the company decide on a term to describe the plural of Prius vehicles, thus answering the decade-long question -- what do you call more than one Prius?

Online voting modules enabled the public to vote for their preferred plural of Prius as well as view real-time polling data. The campaign also featured an animated video, print ads and a Web series hosted by James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio and author of An Exaltation of Larks.

With the expansion of the Prius family to include the Prius Plug-in Hybrid vehicle (PHV), Prius v and Prius c concept, Toyota hopes to further increase acceptance of the Prius brand by offering a wider selection of vehicles. For more information on the Toyota Prius family of vehicles, visit www.toyota.com/priusfamily.