Definition of Noun:
A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, animal, bird or an idea.
A noun is the name of a person, place, animal, bird or thing.
In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective.
Types Of Nouns
There are several different types of noun as follows:
1. Common noun
2. Proper noun
3. Concrete noun
4. Abstract noun
5. Collective nouns
6. Count and mass nouns
1. Common nouns:
Common nouns are names of persons, places, things, animals, birds or idea in general. They are not capitalized unless they come at the beginning of a sentence.
or
A common noun is a noun that refers to people or things in general.
Example: boy, country, bridge, city, birth, day, happiness.
2. Proper nouns:
Proper nouns are the names of specific (particular) persons, places, things. A Proper noun always begins with a capital letter. Or should always be capitalized.
or
A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing.
Example: Africa, London, and Monday.
In written English, proper nouns begin with capital letters.
| Common | Proper | |
| girl | Sita | |
| river | Ganga River | |
| car | Maruti | |
| monument | Tajmahal | |
| city | Delhi |
Don't forget to capitalize all parts of proper nouns.
3. Concrete Noun:
A concrete noun is a noun which refers to people and to things that exist physically and can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted. name people, places, or things that you can touch, see, hear, smell, or taste.
| Person | Place | Thing |
| man | River | Dog |
| Rahul | Delhi | book |
4. Abstract Noun:
An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions - things that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical reality. Name, ideas, concepts, or emotions. These nouns are intangible, which means you cannot touch, see, hear, smell, or taste them using your five senses.
Example: truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour.
| Idea | Emotion |
| Love | Happiness |
| Intelligence | Anger |
| Justice | Excitement |
| Religion | Fear |
5. Collective Noun:
Collective comes from the same root as collection. A collective noun names a group, which is like a collection of people or things.
Collective nouns refer to groups of people or things, i.e: audience, family, government, team, jury. In American English, most collective nouns are treated as singular, with a singular verb:
A noun may belong to more than one category. For example, happiness is both a common noun and an abstract noun, while Mount Everest is both a concrete noun and a proper noun.
| family | Team | jury | committee | herd | pod |
6. Count and mass nouns
Countable or uncountable noun:
Nouns can be either countable or uncountable.
Countable nouns (count nouns) are those that refer to something that can be counted.
Example: boy, cup, pencil, book, plate , tree etc.
Uncountable nouns (mass nouns) do not typically refer to things that can be counted and so they do not regularly have a plural form. We can weigh or measure them.
Example: rice , wheat, milk, oil, cloth, wood , sand etc.
Sigular Noun and Plural Noun
Singular means only one.
Plural means more than one.
In order to make a noun plural add s to form the plural. Example:
cat ⇒ cats
truck ⇒ trucks
bug ⇒ bugs
The rules for spelling plural nouns are based on the letters at the end of the word.
- If a singular noun ends in -s,-ss,-ch,-sh or –x , its plural is usually formed by adding –es
Example: bus ⇒ buses brush ⇒ brushes fox ⇒ foxes
beach ⇒ beaches quiz ⇒ quizzes
2. Nouns that end in vowel + y or vowel + o Add sto form the plural
Example : donkey ⇒ donkeys highway ⇒ highways
oreo ⇒ oreos scenario ⇒ scenarios
3. Nouns that end in consonant + y Change the yto i and add es to form the plural.
Example : family ⇒ families trophy ⇒ trophies
4. Irregular nouns form plurals in unusual ways. Dictionaries will give you the plural spelling if it is irregular.
child ⇒ children , foot ⇒ feet tooth ⇒ teeth man ⇒ men
5. Some nouns are spelled the same way whether they are singular or plural.
fish ⇒ fish sheep ⇒ sheep deer ⇒ deer
You can see below that nouns with the same endings form plurals in the same way every time.
-a ⇒ -ae
amoeba ⇒ amoebae antenna ⇒ antennae alumna ⇒ alumnae
-us ⇒ -i
cactus ⇒ cacti, nucleus ⇒ nuclei, fungus ⇒ fungi
-is ⇒ -es
axis ⇒ axes hypothesis ⇒ hypotheses
-on ⇒ -a
criterion ⇒ criteria phenomenon ⇒ phenomena
-ie ⇒ -ce
die ⇒ dice
Some nouns exist only in the plural form.
Example: Pants Clothes Pajamas Glasses
Scissors Goggles Shorts Jitters Tweezers
compound noun is a noun made up of two or more words. Each word makes up part of the meaning of the noun.
Compound nouns can be written three ways:
| A single word | Two words | Hyphenated | |
| Haircut | rain forest | self-esteem | |
| Toothpaste | ice cream | brother-in-law | |
| A half-eaten pie | |||
| (Half-eaten describes the pie, so it is an adjective, not a noun.) | |||
Two-word proper nouns can also be classified as compound nouns. Remember that proper nouns name specific people, places, and things.
Angkor Wat Atlantic Ocean Eiffel Tower Nelson Mandela
When a compound noun is a single word, make it plural by adding s to the end. If the compound noun is hyphenated or composed of two separate words, remember to add s only to the word that is plural.
mother-in-law ⇒ mothers-in-law
(There are mothers, not laws.)
director general ⇒ directors general
(There are directors, not generals.)
Beware of plurals! Students can be a group, but that doesn't make the word collective. It is plural. the test sentence One ____ is a group. One student is not a group.
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