Noun: Definition & Types

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: - Amit, Sumit, Raju, Ruchi, Neha, etc.

➖Animal – a name for an animal: - Dog, Cat, Rat, Horse, etc.

➖Place – a name for a place: - Mumbai, Delhi, Patna etc.

➖Thing – a name for a thing: - Pen, Pencil, Rubber, Computer, Table etc.

➖Idea – A name for an idea: - devotion, superstition, happiness, excitement, etc.

🔹Different Types of 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: Mumbai (it refers to only one particular city), Amit (refers to a particular person)

🔘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 Delhi, Mumbai, etc. but nothing in particular).

🔘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.

🔘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)

🔘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)

🔘Collective Noun:

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

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

🔘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.

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

➖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.

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