Meaning of the word nouns

A noun (from Latin nōmen ‘name’)^[1] is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.^{[2][note 1]}

Lexical categories (parts of speech) are defined in terms of the ways in which their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ between languages. In English, nouns are those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase. «As far as we know, every language makes a grammatical distinction that looks like a noun verb distinction.»^[3]

History [edit]

Word classes (parts of speech) were described by Sanskrit grammarians from at least the 5th century BC. In Yāska’s Nirukta, the noun (nāma) is one of the four main categories of words defined.^[4]

The Ancient Greek equivalent was ónoma (ὄνομα), referred to by Plato in the Cratylus dialog, and later listed as one of the eight parts of speech in The Art of Grammar, attributed to Dionysius Thrax (2nd century BC). The term used in Latin grammar was nōmen. All of these terms for «noun» were also words meaning «name».^[5] The English word noun is derived from the Latin term, through the Anglo-Norman noun.

The word classes were defined partly by the grammatical forms that they take. In Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case and number. Because adjectives share these three grammatical categories, adjectives are placed in the same class as nouns.

Similarly, the Latin nōmen includes both nouns (substantives) and adjectives, as originally did the English word noun, the two types being distinguished as nouns substantive and nouns adjective (or substantive nouns and adjective nouns, or short substantives and adjectives). (The word nominal is now sometimes used to denote a class that includes both nouns and adjectives.)

Many European languages use a cognate of the word substantive as the basic term for noun (for example, Spanish sustantivo, «noun»). Nouns in the dictionaries of such languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. or sb. instead of n., which may be used for proper nouns or neuter nouns instead. In English, some modern authors use the word substantive to refer to a class that includes both nouns (single words) and noun phrases (multiword units, also called noun equivalents).^[6] It can also be used as a counterpart to attributive when distinguishing between a noun being used as the head (main word) of a noun phrase and a noun being used as a noun adjunct. For example, the noun knee can be said to be used substantively in my knee hurts, but attributively in the patient needed knee replacement.

Examples[edit]

• The cat sat on the chair.
• Please hand in your assignments by the end of the week.
• Cleanliness is next to godliness.
• Plato was an influential philosopher in ancient Greece.
• Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit/The oldest sins the newest kind of ways? Henry IV Part 2, act 4 scene 5.

A noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives cannot. In the following, an asterisk (*) in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical.

• the name (name is a noun: can co-occur with a definite article the)
• *the baptise (baptise is a verb: cannot co-occur with a definite article)
• constant circulation (circulation is a noun: can co-occur with the attributive adjective constant)
• *constant circulate (circulate is a verb: cannot co-occur with the attributive adjective constant)
• a fright (fright is a noun: can co-occur with the indefinite article a)
• *an afraid (afraid is an adjective: cannot co-occur with the article a)
• terrible fright (the noun fright can co-occur with the adjective terrible)
• *terrible afraid (the adjective afraid cannot co-occur with the adjective terrible)

Definitions[edit]

Nouns have sometimes been defined in terms of the grammatical categories to which they are subject (classed by gender, inflected for case and number). Such definitions tend to be language-specific, since nouns do not have the same categories in all languages.

Nouns are frequently defined, particularly in informal contexts, in terms of their semantic properties (their meanings). Nouns are described as words that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, etc. However, this type of definition has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative.^[7]

There are several instances of English-language nouns which do not have any reference: drought, enjoyment, finesse, behalf (as found in on behalf of), dint (in dint of), and sake (for the sake of).^[8][9][10] Moreover, there may be a relationship similar to reference in the case of other parts of speech: the verbs to rain or to mother; many adjectives, like red; and there is little difference between the adverb gleefully and the noun-based phrase with glee.^{[note 2]}

Linguists often prefer to define nouns (and other lexical categories) in terms of their formal properties. These include morphological information, such as what prefixes or suffixes they take, and also their syntax – how they combine with other words and expressions of particular types. Such definitions may nonetheless still be language-specific since syntax as well as morphology varies between languages. For example, in English, it might be noted that nouns are words that can co-occur with definite articles (as stated at the start of this article), but this would not apply in Russian, which has no definite articles.

A functional approach defines a noun as a word that can be the head of a nominal phrase, i.e. a phrase with referential function, without needing to go through morphological transformation.^[11][12]

Classification[edit]

Nouns can have a number of different properties and are often sub-categorized based on various of these criteria, depending on their occurrence in a language.

Gender[edit]

In some languages, genders are assigned to nouns, such as masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender of a noun (as well as its number and case, where applicable) will often entail agreement in words that modify or are related to it. For example, in French, the singular form of the definite article is le for masculine nouns and la for feminine; adjectives and certain verb forms also change (with the addition of -e for feminine). Grammatical gender often correlates with the form of the noun and the inflection pattern it follows; for example, in both Italian and Russian most nouns ending -a are feminine. Gender can also correlate with the sex of the noun’s referent, particularly in the case of nouns denoting people (and sometimes animals). Nouns arguably do not have gender in Modern English, although many of them denote people or animals of a specific sex (or social gender), and pronouns that refer to nouns must take the appropriate gender for that noun. (The girl lost her spectacles.)

Proper and common nouns[edit]

A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing unique entities (such as India, Pegasus, Jupiter, Confucius, or Pequod), as distinguished from common nouns, which describe a class of entities (such as country, animal, planet, person or ship).^[13]

Countable nouns and mass nouns[edit]

Count nouns or countable nouns are common nouns that can take a plural, can combine with numerals or counting quantifiers (e.g., one, two, several, every, most), and can take an indefinite article such as a or an (in languages which have such articles). Examples of count nouns are chair, nose, and occasion.

Mass nouns or uncountable (or non-count) nouns differ from count nouns in precisely that respect: they cannot take plurals or combine with number words or the above type of quantifiers. For example, it is not possible to refer to a furniture or three furnitures. This is true even though the pieces of furniture comprising furniture could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns should not be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rather in terms of how the nouns present these entities.^[14][15]

Many nouns have both countable and uncountable uses; for example, soda is countable in «give me three sodas», but uncountable in «he likes soda».

Collective nouns[edit]

Collective nouns are nouns that – even when they are inflected for the singular – refer to groups consisting of more than one individual or entity. Examples include committee, government, and police. In English these nouns may be followed by a singular or a plural verb and referred to by a singular or plural pronoun, the singular being generally preferred when referring to the body as a unit and the plural often being preferred, especially in British English, when emphasizing the individual members.^[16] Examples of acceptable and unacceptable use given by Gowers in Plain Words include:^[16]

«A committee was appointed to consider this subject.» (singular)

«The committee were unable to agree.» (plural)

* «The committee were of one mind when I sat in on them.» (unacceptable use of plural)

Concrete nouns and abstract nouns[edit]

Concrete nouns refer to physical entities that can, in principle at least, be observed by at least one of the senses (for instance, chair, apple, Janet or atom). Different schools of philosophy and sciences may question the assumption, but, for the most part, people agree to the existence of something (e.g., a rock, a tree, universe). Abstract nouns, on the other hand, refer to abstract objects; that is, ideas or concepts (such as justice or hatred). While this distinction is sometimes exclusive, some nouns have multiple senses, including both concrete and abstract ones: for example, the noun art, which usually refers to a concept (e.g., Art is an important element of human culture.) but which can refer to a specific artwork in certain contexts (e.g., I put my daughter’s art up on the fridge.)

Some abstract nouns developed etymologically by figurative extension from literal roots. These include drawback, fraction, holdout and uptake. Similarly, some nouns have both abstract and concrete senses, with the latter having developed by figurative extension from the former. These include view, filter, structure and key.

In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding a suffix (-ness, -ity, -ion) to adjectives or verbs. Examples are happiness (from the adjective happy), circulation (from the verb circulate) and serenity (from the adjective serene).

Alienable vs. inalienable nouns[edit]

Some languages, such as the Awa language spoken in Papua New Guinea,^[17] refer to nouns differently, depending on how ownership is being given for the given noun. This can be broken into two categories: alienable possession and inalienable possession. An alienably possessed noun is something that can exist independent of a possessor: for example ‘tree’ can be possessed (‘Lucy’s tree’) but need not be (‘the tree’), and likewise for ‘shirt’ (‘Mike’s shirt’, ‘that shirt’) and ‘roads’ (‘London’s roads’, ‘those roads’) . Inalienablly possessed nouns, on the other hand, refer to something that does not exist independently of a possessor; this includes kin terms such as ‘father’, body-part nouns such as ‘shadow’ or ‘hair’, and part-whole nouns such as ‘top’ and ‘bottom’.

Noun phrases[edit]

A noun phrase is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like words (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as determiners and adjectives. A noun phrase functions within a clause or sentence in a role such as that of subject, object, or complement of a verb or preposition. For example, in the sentence «The black cat sat on a dear friend of mine», the noun phrase the black cat serves as the subject, and the noun phrase a dear friend of mine serves as the complement of the preposition on.

Nouns in relation to other word classes[edit]

Pronouns[edit]

Nouns and noun phrases can typically be replaced by pronouns, such as he, it, she, they, these which, and those, in order to avoid repetition or explicit identification, or for other reasons. For example, in the sentence Gareth thought that he was weird, the word «he» is a pronoun standing in place of the person’s name. The word one can replace parts of noun phrases, and it sometimes stands in for a noun. An example is given below:

John’s car is newer than the one that Bill has.

But one can also stand in for larger parts of a noun phrase. For example, in the following example, one can stand in for new car.

This new car is cheaper than that one.

Nominalization[edit]

Nominalization is a process whereby a word that belongs to another part of speech comes to be used as a noun. This can be a way to create new nouns, or to use other words in ways that resemble nouns. In French and Spanish, for example, adjectives frequently act as nouns referring to people who have the characteristics denoted by the adjective. This sometimes happens in English as well, as in the following examples:

This legislation will have the most impact on the poor.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the powerful.

The Socialist International is a worldwide association of political parties.

See also[edit]

• Description
• Grammatical case
• Phi features
• Punctuation
• Reference

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Lester, Mark; Beason, Larry (2005). The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-144133-6.
• Borer, Hagit (2005). In Name Only. Structuring Sense. Vol. I. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Gowers, Ernest (2014). Gowers, Rebecca (ed.). Plain Words. Particular. ISBN 978-0-141-97553-5.

Further reading[edit]

• Laycock, Henry (2005). «Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns», Draft version of entry in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics Oxford: Elsevier.

For definitions of nouns based on the concept of «identity criteria»:

• Geach, Peter. 1962. Reference and Generality. Cornell University Press.

For more on identity criteria:

• Gupta, Anil. 1980, The logic of common nouns. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

For the concept that nouns are «prototypically referential»:

• Croft, William. 1993. «A noun is a noun is a noun — or is it? Some reflections on the universality of semantics». Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Joshua S. Guenter, Barbara A. Kaiser and Cheryl C. Zoll, 369–80. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

For an attempt to relate the concepts of identity criteria and prototypical referentiality:

• Baker, Mark. 2003, Lexical Categories: verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

External links[edit]

• Nouns – Nouns described by The Idioms Dictionary.

Nouns make up the largest class of words in most languages, including English. A noun is a word that refers to a thing (book), a person (Noah Webster), an animal (cat), a place (Omaha), a quality (softness), an idea (justice), or an action (yodeling). It’s usually a single word, but not always: cake, shoes, school bus, and time and a half are all nouns.

There are a number of different categories of nouns.

There are common nouns and proper nouns. A common noun refers to a person, place, or thing but is not the name of a particular person, place, or thing. Examples are animal, sunlight, and happiness. A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, or thing; it usually begins with a capital letter: Abraham Lincoln, Argentina, and World War I are all proper nouns.

A collective noun is a noun that names a group of people or things, such as flock or squad. It’s sometimes unclear whether the verb for a collective noun should be singular or plural. In the United States, such nouns as company, team, herd, public, and class, as well as the names of companies, teams, etc., are treated as singular, but in the United Kingdom they are often treated as plural: (US) «The team has been doing well this season.» vs. (British) «The team have been doing well this season.»

Gerunds are nouns that are identical to the present participle (-ing form) of a verb, as in «I enjoy swimming more than running.«

An attributive noun is a noun that modifies another noun that immediately follows it, such as business in business meeting. These nouns look like adjectives but they’re not.

For learners of English, the most important feature of a noun is whether it can be counted. A count noun is a noun that can be used after a or an or after a number (or another word that means «more than one»). Count nouns have both singular and plural forms and can be used with both singular and plural verb forms, as with the word letter in «A letter for you is on the table. Letters for you arrive regularly.» Sometimes the plural form of a count noun is the same as its singular form, as in «I saw a deer in my yard yesterday. There are a lot of deer in the woods near my house.»

A mass noun (or noncount noun) refers to something that cannot be counted. Mass nouns are normally not used after the words a or an or after a number. They have only one form and are used with singular verb forms, as in «Portuguese is one of the languages they speak,» and «The information was unclear.»

Some nouns are not count or mass nouns. Nouns which only ever refer to one thing are called singular nouns: «Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun,» «We heard a terrible din in the alley.» And a plural noun refers to more than one person or thing, or sometimes to something that has two main parts. Plural nouns have only one form and are used with plural verb forms: «Townspeople are invited to a forum on the project,» «These scissors are dull.»

A particular noun can have any or all of these kinds of uses.

(count) I’ve read that book several times.

(mass) Time seemed to stop when I saw him for the first time.

(singular) The time is 3:22.

(plural) Fuel costs three times as much as it did five years ago.

What is a noun?

Noun Definition | Meaning

A noun is a naming word. It can be the name of a thing, place, person, animal or feeling.

Examples of Noun

Naming People
It could be a name of any person, for example: John, Fatima, Singh, Michael, Tom and so on.

Naming Places
It could be a name of any place, for example: America, China, Church, Taj Mahal, Paris and so on.

Naming Things
Naming things are like Car, Hat, Bottle, Table, Chair, Ball and so on.

Naming Animals
Dog, Rabbit, Elephant, Chicken, Horse.

Naming Feeling/Qualities/Ideas
Joy, Fear, Beauty, Strength, Anger.

Example Sentences

1. I live in Australia.
2. Jenny is my sister.
3. I love to play with my dog.
4. The name of this monkey is Boo.
5. Pacific Ocean is very vast.

All the things in the world of nouns fall into two classes:

1. Concrete Noun (or Material Noun)
2. Abstract Noun

All Types of Nouns

• Proper Noun
• Common Noun
• Collective Noun
• Concrete Noun (or Material Noun)
• Abstract Noun
• Possessive Noun
• Number Noun
• Compound Noun
• Countable Noun
• Uncountable Noun (or Mass Noun)
• Masculine Noun
• Feminine Noun

Proper Noun

Names of people or places such as your name, your friend’s name, your parents’ name or the name of your town and country are special naming words. These words are called proper nouns. Special naming words or proper nouns always  always begin with a capital letter.

Example Sentences of Proper Noun

1. My name is Mark.
2. Her name is Sofie.
3. Come Tom, let us go for a walk.
4. Hello Jack! Will you play with me?
5. My cousin lives in Norway.
6. These bears are from China.
7. Albert Einstein was born in Germany.
8. I visited the Taj Mahal in India.
9. Fio and Laa are close friends.

Understanding Proper Nouns

The days of the week and the months of the year are proper nouns.

Example Sentences

1. Every Sunday Mike visits the church.
2. Christmas comes in the month of December.
3. My sister was born in March month.
4. Sam goes for swimming classes every Friday.

The names of festivals and some special days are proper nouns.

Example Sentences

1. Christmas is my favourite festival.
2. My mother likes Mother’s Day.
3. We will celebrate New Year’s Eve.

The names of buildings, mountains, rivers and seas are also proper nouns.

Example Sentences

1. I have seen the Great Wall of China.
2. Last year we visited the Niagara Falls.
3. Many people  have climber the Mount Everest.
4. River Nile is very long.

Common Noun

Common nouns are naming words that are common to people, places, things and animals etc. Common nouns do not define any particular person, place or thing. They are general names. So, they are not capitalized unless they begin a sentence. For example boy, girl, doctor, town, city, dog, car and so on.

Example Sentences of Common Noun

1. Teachers teach in school.
2. Birds live on trees.
3. I love to read storybooks.
4. Sally’s mother is a doctor.
5. These chocolates and cakes are so delicious.

Identify and learn about proper nouns and common nouns in the list of sentences below.

1. Sony produces cameras too.
2. Alicia and Cathy were playing with a doll.
3. Sandy is joining school today.
4. Hens have laid eggs at Todd‘s farm.
5. The postman Mr. Robert was carrying postcards.

In above examples the words in purple colour are proper noun whereas words in green colour are common nouns.

Collective Noun

Collective nouns are used to name a group of persons, places, animals or things. A collective noun represents a complete whole. For examples: a library of books, a team of players and a family of four.

Some collective nouns are used to name a group of animals and birds.

1. A flock of sheep.
2. A herd of cattle.
3. A stud of horses.
4. A gaggle of geese.
5. A litter of cubs.
6. A flock of birds.
7. A shoal of fish.
8. A pack of wolves.
9. A swarm of bees.

Some collective nouns define a group of people.

1. A crew of sailors.
2. An army of soldiers.
3. A band of musicians.
4. A class of pupils.
5. A troupe of actors.
6. A panel of judges.
7. A gang of robbers.

There are some collective nouns that stand for a group of things.

1. A bunch of keys.
2. A pile of clothes.
3. A collection of books.
4. A string of pearls.
5. A set of stamps.
6. A galaxy of stars.
7. A pack of cards.
8. An atlas of maps.
9. A bouquet of flowers.
10. A bunch of grapes.

Example Sentences of Collective Noun

1. My maternal aunt bought me a pair of tennis shoes.
2. At the playground, you get to observe a colony of ants.
3. A pile of clothes was kept on the bed.
4. I need to finish an agenda of tasks before I leave.
5. There is a network of computers in Joseph’s office.

Concrete Noun

Things that have material bodies are called “concrete nouns.” In other words, a concrete noun represents a material object rather than an abstract quality, state, or action, for example, a building, tree, or dog.

Example Sentences of Concrete Noun

1. The dog is a faithful animal.
2. She gave me a bouquet of flowers.
3. He bought a new pack of playing cards.
4. I cannot go outside because of the rain.
5. The scent of the perfume is delightful.

Abstract Noun

These are the nouns that name feelings, qualities, actions, ideas, states, and other things that one cannot touch or see but feel or experience. They are called abstract nouns. In other words, things that have no material bodies are known as abstract nouns.

Example Sentences of Abstract Noun

1. We should always speak the truth.
2. The audience burst into peals of laughter.
3. Theidioms.com gives us a lot of knowledge.
4. Treat animals with kindness.
5. In his excitement, he dropped his glass.

Possessive Noun

A possessive noun is a word that names who or what has or owns something. We add an apostrophe and s (‘s) to form the possessive of most singular nouns.

Example Sentences of Possessive Noun

1. This is Bob’s skateboard. (Means – The skateboard belongs to Bob)
2. This is Ian’s Coat. (Means – The coat belongs to Ian)
3. Papa bought a new frame for grandpa’s spectacles.
4. Ted’s dream for a bicycle came true on his birthday.
5. Julia’s homework was not checked.

Sometimes we need to show possession for plural nouns or where the owners are more than one. In such cases we add an apostrophe at the end.

1. A girls’ school is located near my house.
2. We should not harm the birds’ nests.

Number Noun

Number nouns denote one or many. There are two kinds of number nouns:

1. Singular number noun – It stands for one person, animal, thing or place.
2. Plural number noun – It stands for more than one person, animal, thing or place.

For example: One toy, three balls, two dogs, five cars, nine planets and so on.

Generally, by adding a ‘s’ at the end, we can change a singular noun to a plural noun.

There are different rules we follow to change a singular noun to a plural noun.

Rule 1

When a singular noun ends with a ‘y’ after a consonant, we remove the ‘y’ and add ‘ies’.
For example:

• City – Cities
• Lady – Ladies
• Story – Stories

Consonants are all other letters except vowels (a, e, i, o, u).

Rule 2

If there is vowel before ‘y’ just add s to form its plural.
For example:

• Boy – Boys
• Day – Days
• Trolley – Trolleys
• Toy – Toys

Rule 3

When a singular noun ends with ‘o’ after a vowel, add ‘s’ to make it a plural noun.
For example:

• Bamboo – Bamboos
• Radio – Radios
• Video – Videos

Rule 4

When a singular noun ends with ‘o’ after a consonant, we add ‘es’ to make it a plural noun.
For example:

• Tomato – Tomatoes
• Volcano – Volcanoes
• Hero – Heroes

It is also possible that for few nouns ending with ‘o’ preceded by a consonant, we add the letter ‘s’ to form their plurals.
For example:

• Piano – Pianos
• Photo – Photos

Rule 5

If a singular noun ends with a sound like ‘s’ such as ‘ss’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘x’, ‘z’, ‘tch’, we add ‘es’ to make it plural.
For example:

• Box – Boxes
• Watch – Watches
• Dress – Dresses
• Quiz – Quizzes

Rule 6

If a singular noun ends with ‘f’ or ‘fe’, change the ‘f’ into ‘v’ and add ‘es’ to make it plural.
For example:

• Life – Lives
• Calf – Calves
• Loaf – Loaves
• Knife – Knives

Irregular Plural

Plurals of some nouns remains the same.
For example:

• Fish – Fish
• Deer – Deer
• Cattle – Cattle
• Sheep – Sheep
• Bison – Bison

Plural of some nouns are totally different from their singular form.
For example:

• Mouse – Mice
• Ox – Oxen
• Cactus – Cacti
• Child – Children
• Man – Men

Some nouns are always plural like pants, jeans, shorts, tongs, scissors, hair and sunglasses.

Compound Noun

Compound nouns are formed by joining two nouns together. There are three different ways to form compound nouns:

1. The closed form, like notebook, firefly and keyboard.
2. The hyphenated form, like x-ray, co-pilot and mother-in-law.
3. The open form, like post office, history book, mineral water.

Example Sentences of Compound Noun

1. Ian looked at his timetable.
2. It was going to be lunchtime.
3. The basketball match was scheduled in the afternoon.
4. Just after the breakfast, Matt rushed to his tracksuit.
5. X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen.

Countable Noun

Nouns that can be counted are called countable nouns. Most of the nouns come in the category of countable nouns rather than uncountable nouns because they refer to things, people or animals that can be counted.

Example Sentences of Countable Noun

1. I saw two owls sitting on the tree.
2. There are four milk bottles in the fridge.
3. My father has two cars.
4. I need an umbrella to get out in the rain.
5. To make this cake we need an egg.

Note: We use ‘the’ for some singular nouns which are unique (one of their kind). For example: The Earth, The Sun, The Moon etc.

Uncountable Noun

Nouns that cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns. Uncountable nouns also known as ‘mass noun.’

We cannot count certain things in numbers such as milk, rain, sugar, water, jam. We have to use words like – a glass of milk, a jar of sugar, a jug of water or a bottle of jam. We can use terms like – a little, plenty or a bowl of with uncountable nouns. Though these nouns can be measured, they cannot be counted. Such nouns do not have a singular or plural form.

The Noun: Gender

Noun words can be divided into masculine and feminine.

Masculine Nouns

Masculine nouns represent males: Boys, men and male animals. For example: Prince, man, king, boy, cock, lion etc.

Feminine Nouns

Feminine nouns represent females: Girls, women and female animals. For example: Princess, woman, queen, girl, hen, lioness, etc.

But there are some nouns that represent both males and females. For example: Children, artists, principals, teachers, singers, lawyers, etc.

If you take a walk around town, you’ll see many different things. You might see some ducks. You might go to the beach. You might stop and talk to your friend Patrick. You might even feel pain if you trip and scrape your knee. There is one thing that ducks, beaches, pain, and Patrick have in common: they are all nouns. Lots of the words we use are nouns. Nouns appear in almost all of our sentences, so it is only fair that we learn a little bit more about these helpful words. First, we will figure out what a noun is and then learn about the different types of nouns and how to use them in sentences.

What is a noun?

Most of us learned the classic definition of noun back in elementary school, where we were told simply that “a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing.” That’s not a bad beginning; it even clues us in to the origin of the word, since noun is derived ultimately from the Latin word nōmen, which means “name.”

As we see from its dictionary definition, a noun can name not only a physical thing but also abstract things such as a state (happiness) or a quality (beauty). The word is defined further in terms of the way it functions in the language—as a subject or object in a sentence or as the object of a preposition. In any of those positions, it can be modified by an adjective or adjective phrase: a talented but quirky artist.

Let’s start by diving into the classic definition of the word noun, and what it means to refer to “person, place, or thing.”

People

Nouns are used to refer to people. This includes general words for types of people such as clown or teenagers, as well as names of specific people such as Erica or George Washington. Here are some examples of nouns that refer to people:

• astronaut, mother, thief, salesman, friend, stranger, lifeguard, boss
• Santa Claus, Frederick Douglass, Peter Pan, Abraham Lincoln, Nina Simone, Captain Kidd

Places

Nouns can also refer to places. Again, this includes general words for places such as desert or outside, as well as names of specific places such as Texas or South America. Take a look at some of these nouns that refer to places:

• forest, island, jungle, city, alley, neighborhood, upstairs, basement
• France, China, Egypt, Tokyo, Istanbul, Madrid, Narnia, Valhalla, Bikini Bottom

Things

Lastly, nouns can refer to things. This is a very broad category of stuff. When we say that nouns refer to “things,” we mean objects that you can detect with your senses such as table or bus, as well as more complicated things that you can’t sense such as fear or democracy. To get a better idea of how nouns can refer to things, check out these examples:

• dirt, music, bunny, chocolate, iPad, computer, flower
• courage, greed, time, pacifism, intensity, Wednesday, July

How are nouns used?

Nouns have several different important uses. We use nouns to give names to everything. For example, the hairy animals that fetch sticks and chase cats are called dogs. In this way, nouns make it much easier for us to describe the world around us. In grammar, nouns can serve two important functions. First, nouns can act as the subjects or parts of the subjects of verbs. Subjects work with verbs to tell us who or what is doing something:

• Jessica went to the bank.
• Ice cream is delicious.
• The store is having a sale.

Learn more about how to identify a subject (and predicates!) with this handy article.

The second important use of nouns is they can act as the objects of verbs and prepositions. Objects, in grammar, tell us what or who is having something done to them:

• Daisy loves Donald.
• They speak Spanish.
• He betrayed his friend for money.
• She is a woman of many talents.

Types of nouns

There are many different types of nouns that we use to refer to a wide variety of people, places, things, and ideas. Let’s take a quick look at each of the different types of nouns and how we would use them in a sentence.

• Common nouns refer to broad categories of things and are not capitalized: chair, car, monkeys, socks, peanut butter, hunger, teacher, worm, disgust.
  • I ate pizza for dinner.
• Proper nouns refer to specific people, places, and things. Proper nouns are capitalized: Wonder Woman, Russia, Jupiter, Chicago, Band-aids, Playstation, Google.
  • Dr. Armstrong is an excellent surgeon.
• Singular nouns refer to a single thing: person, bicycle, cat, queen, Ohio, King Tut.
  • The reckless driver smashed into my mailbox.
• Plural nouns refer to more than one of something: bees, afternoons, countries, women, geese.
  • Oranges are a healthy snack.
• Concrete nouns refer to things you can experience with your senses: candy, keyboard, paper, sand, fish.
  • Where are the pencils?
• Abstract nouns refer to intangible things and emotions that you can’t detect with the five senses: shyness, anger, peace, motion, confusion, expenses, chaos.
  • She was filled with rage.
• Collective nouns refer to groups of things. They can be singular or plural: army, gang, committee, club, team, society, cult.
  • We chased after the herd of cows.
• Compound nouns combine multiple words to form a single noun: downtown, snowstorm, killjoy, busybody, free fall, know-it-all.
  • I had to stop to tie my shoelaces.
• A countable noun refers to things that can be counted: banana, tree, coins, students, wheel, basketballs.
  • He bought four shirts that were on sale.
• Uncountable nouns refer to things that can’t be counted: furniture, water, blood, depression, photosynthesis.
  • It says on the bottle that this medicine might cause dizziness.

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Nouns refer to persons, animals, places, things, ideas, or events, etc. Nouns encompass most of the words of a language.

Noun can be a/an —  

• Person – a name for a person: — Max, Julie, Catherine, Michel, Bob, etc.
• Animal – a name for an animal: — dog, cat, cow, kangaroo, etc.
• Place – a name for a place: — London, Australia, Canada, Mumbai, etc.
• Thing – a name for a thing: — bat, ball, chair, door, house, computer, etc.
• Idea – A name for an idea: — devotion, superstition, happiness, excitement, etc.

Examples of Noun in sentence

Different Types of Noun:

• Proper Noun
• Common Noun
• Abstract Noun
• Concrete Noun
• Countable Noun
• Non-countable Noun
• Collective Noun
• Compound Noun

Proper Noun:

A proper noun is a name which refers only to a single person, place, or thing and there is no common name for it. In written English, a proper noun always begins with capital letters.

Example: Melbourne (it refers to only one particular city), Steve (refers to a particular person),

Australia (there is no other country named Australia; this name is fixed for only one country).

More Examples of Proper Noun

Common Noun:

A common noun is a name for something which is common for many things, person, or places. It encompasses a particular type of things, person, or places.

Example: Country (it can refer to any country, nothing in particular), city (it can refer to any city like Melbourne, Mumbai, Toronto, etc. but nothing in particular).

So, a common noun is a word that indicates a person, place, thing, etc. In general and a proper noun is a specific one of those.

More Examples of Common Noun

Abstract Noun:

An abstract noun is a word for something that cannot be seen but is there. It has no physical existence. Generally, it refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions.

Example: Truth, lies, happiness, sorrow, time, friendship, humor, patriotism, etc.

Abstract Noun examples in sentences

Concrete Noun:

A concrete noun is the exact opposite of abstract noun. It refers to the things we see and have physical existence.

Example: Chair, table, bat, ball, water, money, sugar, etc.

Countable Noun:

The nouns that can be counted are called countable nouns. Countable nouns can take an article: a, an, the.

Example: Chair, table, bat, ball, etc. (you can say 1 chair, 2 chairs, 3 chairs – so chairs are countable)

Countable Noun examples in sentences

Non-countable Noun:

The nouns that cannot be counted are called non-countable nouns.

Example: Water, sugar, oil, salt, etc. (you cannot say “1 water, 2 water, 3 water” because water is not countable)

Abstract nouns and proper nouns are always non-countable nouns, but common nouns and concrete nouns can be both count and non-count nouns.

Non-countable Noun examples in sentences

Collective Noun:

A collective noun is a word for a group of things, people, or animals, etc.

Example: family, team, jury, cattle, etc.

Collective nouns can be both plural and singular. However, Americans prefer to use collective nouns as singular, but both of the uses are correct in other parts of the world.

Compound Noun:

Sometimes two or three nouns appear together, or even with other parts of speech, and create idiomatic compound nouns. Idiomatic means that those nouns behave as a unit and, to a lesser or greater degree, amount to more than the sum of their parts.

Example: six-pack, five-year-old, and son-in-law, snowball, mailbox, etc.

More Types of Noun:

Singular Noun:

Singular Nouns are namely, singular in number. The base form of any noun is naturally singular and so that is the Singular Noun. 

Examples:

Duck, Bush, Man, Mouse, Child, Fish etc. are Singular Nouns.

Singular Noun in a sentence:

• I have a pet duck.
• That big bush is beside our house.
• He is the man of the house.
• Ron’s pet mouse is too vicious for such a little creature.
• Their child has a sound sense of situational adjustments.
• I’d like that small fish, please.

Plural Noun:

The plural forms of the Singular Nouns are Plural Nouns. These nouns determine more than one element.

Examples:

Belts, Boxes, Mice, Sheep, People etc. are examples of Plural Noun.

Plural Noun in a sentence: 

• There are seven belts in the seat.
• Let’s unpack those boxes.
• Our house is scattered with a herd of mice.
• I’ve chased the sheep back into the shed.
• These people are getting on my nerves.

Regular Noun:

Regular Nouns do not change in spelling when changed into plural; only the regular plural suffixes -s or -es are attached to it according to the grammar and spelling agreement.

Examples: 

Singular Noun	Plural Noun
Duck	Ducks
Belt	Belts
Box	Boxes
Bush	Bushes
Apple	Apples

Irregular Noun:

Irregular Nouns do not have plural suffixes added to them for their plural form and they monumentally change in spelling.

Examples:

Singular Noun	Plural Noun
Man	Men
Ox	Oxen
Fox	Vixen
Goose	Geese
Mouse	Mice

Possessive Noun:

The noun that owns something or has something in its possession is the Possessive Noun. These nouns usually end with an apostrophe before one “s” that determines the possession of the object(s) that follows. 

Example: 

• My cat’s litter needs changing very soon.
• Jacky’s wallet is stolen.
• Your pet’s feeder is missing.

Verbal Noun:

Verb + ing often act as the noun/subject of the sentence instead of posing as a verb and then they become a Verbal Noun. Gerunds can be Verbal Nouns at times. 

Example: 

Verb	Verbal Noun
Run	Running
Smoke	Smoking
Kill	Killing
Treat	Treating

• Smoking is injurious to health.
• Killing the runaway tiger is not a solution.
• Running for dear life is what thieves do.

Material Noun:

Substances made out of tangible materials are usually Material Nouns. These are Common Uncountable Nouns by nature since they mostly determine a certain sector type of product.

Examples:

• I lack the common fascination with gold.
• Coal produces nonrenewable energy.
• Humans are 70% water.

Functions of Nouns

Nouns can be used as a subject, a direct object, and an indirect object of a verb; as an object of a preposition; and as an adverb or adjective in sentences. Nouns can also show possession.

Subject: The company is doing great. Roses are the flowers of love.

Direct object: I finally bought a new mobile.

Indirect object: Max gave Carol another chocolate.

Object of preposition: Roses are the flowers of love.

Adverb: The train leaves today.

Adjective: The office building faces the mall.

Possession: The lion’s cage is dangerous. My brother’s daughter is adorable.

—
The categorial
meaning
of the noun is “substance”
or “thingness”.
Nouns directly name various phenomena of reality and have the
strongest
nominative force
among notional parts of speech: practically every phenomenon can be
presented by a noun as an independent referent, or, can be
substantivized. Nouns denote things and objects proper (tree),
abstract notions (love),
various qualities (bitterness),
and even actions (movement).
All these words function in speech in the same way as nouns denoting
things proper.

—
Formally,
the noun is characterized by
a specific set of word-building affixes
and word-building models, which mark a noun: suffixes of the doer
(worker,
naturalist,
etc.), suffixes of abstract notions (laziness,
rotation, security, elegance,
etc.), special
conversion patterns
(to
find – a find),
etc. As for word-changing categories, the noun is changed
according to the categories of number
(boy-boys),
case
(boy-boy’s),
and article
determination
(boy,
a boy, the boy).
Formally the noun is also characterized by
specific combinability
with verbs, adjectives and other nouns. The noun is the only part of
speech which can
be prepositionally combined
with other words, e.g.: the
book of the teacher, to go out of the room, away from home, typical
of the noun,
etc.

—
The most characteristic functions
of
the noun in a sentence are the function of a subject
and an object,
since they commonly denote persons and things as components of the
situation, e.g.: The
teacher took the book.
Besides, the noun can function as a predicative
(part of a compound predicate), e.g.: He
is a teacher;
and as an adverbial
modifier,
e.g.: It
happened last summer.
The noun in English can also function as an attribute
in the following cases: when it is used in the genitive case (the
teacher’s book),
when it is used with a preposition (the
book of the teacher),
or in contact groups of two nouns the first of which qualifies the
second (cannon
ball, space exploration, sea breeze, the Bush administration,
etc.).

—
The category
of gender
in English is a highly controversial subject in grammar. The fact is,
the category of gender in English differs from the category of gender
in many other languages, for example, in Russian, in French or in
German. The category of gender linguistically may be either
meaningful
(or, natural), rendering the actual sex-based features of the
referents, or formal
(arbitrary).
In
Russian and some other languages the category of gender is meaningful
only for human (person) nouns, but for the non-human (non-person)
nouns it is formal; i.e., it does not correspond with the actual
biological sex, cf.: рука
is
feminine, палец
is masculine, тело
is neuter, though all of them denote parts of the human body.

-In
English gender
is a meaningful category
for the whole class of the nouns, because it reflects the real gender
attributes (or their absence/ irrelevance) of the referent denoted.
It is realized through obligatory correspondence of every noun with
the 3rd person singular pronouns — he,
she, or it:
man
– he, woman – she, tree, dog – it.
Personal
pronouns are grammatical gender classifiers in English. The
category
of gender is formed by two
oppositions
organized hierarchically. The first opposition is general and opposes
human, or person nouns, distinguishing masculine and feminine gender
(man
– he, woman – she)
and all the other, non-human, non-person nouns, belonging to the
neuter gender (tree,
dog – it).
The second opposition is formed by the human nouns only: on the lower
level of the opposition the nouns of masculine gender and of feminine
gender are opposed.

—
The category
of number
presents a classic example of a binary
privative grammatical opposition.
The category of number is expressed by the paradigmatic opposition of
two
forms:
the
singular and the plural.
The strong member in this opposition, the plural, is marked by
special formal marks, the main of which is the productive suffix
–(e)s
which exists in three allomorphs — [s],
[z], [iz],
e.g.: cats,
boys, roses. The
singular is regularly unmarked (weak member).

—
The category
of case
in English constitutes a great linguistic problem. Linguists argue,
first,
whether the category of case really exists in modern English, and,
second,
if it does exist, how many case forms of the noun can be
distinguished. The main disagreements concern the grammatical status
of “noun + an apostrophe + –s” form (Ted’s book). There are
four approaches which can be distinguished in the analysis of this
problem (the
theory of positional cases, the theory of prepositional cases, the
theory of limited case, the theory of the possessive postposition”or
“the theory
of no case”).
The
theory of limited case”
is the most widely accepted theory of case in English today. It was
formulated by linguists H.
Sweet, O. Jespersen and further developed by Russian linguists A.
Smirnitsky, L. Barchudarov
and others. It is based on the oppositional presentation of the
category; the category of case is expressed by the opposition of two
forms: the first form, “the genitive case”, is the strong,
featured member of the opposition, marked by the postpositional
element ‘–s’ e.g.: the
girl’s books, the girls’ books;
the second, unfeatured form is the weak member of the opposition and
is usually referred to as “the common case” (“non-genitive”).
The category of case is realized in full in animate nouns and
restrictedly in inanimate nouns in English, hence the name – “the
theory of limited case”.

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• Grammar
• Nouns