Resources To Help You Become A Better English Speaker

Noun :

A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea. Examples include actor, building, ticket, and honesty.

 A common noun is a general name for a person, place, thing, or idea.

 

A proper noun is the name of a particular one. For example, theater is a common noun; 

Palace Theater is a proper noun. Only proper nouns need to be capitalized. 

A concrete noun names a thing that can seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.

 

An abstract noun names an idea, feeling, quality, or characteristic. For example, script and villain are concrete nouns, while excitement and dishonesty are abstract nouns.

 

A collective noun is a word that names a group of people or things, such as crew.

Let us talk in detail about all its parts-

Proper nouns :

A proper noun is the name of a particular person or thing, i.e. a name used for an individual person or place, river, or mountain 

etc.: Mary, Rahul, Godavari, India, Everest  

 Common nouns 

A common noun refers to any and every person or thing of the same kind or class, not to a particular person or thing: cow, dog, girl, boy, man, woman 

Common nouns       Proper nouns 

girl                            Latha 

dog                            jimmy

man                            sam

 Collective nouns 

A collective noun is the name of a collection, group of people, or things of the same kind: class, team, government jury, federation 

 Material nouns 

A material noun is the name of a material, substance, or ingredient things are made of. They can be articles of food or drink as well: iron, copper, steel, gold, coal, silver, rice, wheat, milk, water, tea, sugar 

Note: A material noun is a type of common noun but a distinction is made between the two. A common noun is usually a countable noun but a material noun is an uncountable noun. The cow gives us milk. Cow is a common noun (countable), but milk is a material noun (uncountable). 

Abstract nouns

 An abstract noun is the name of a quality, state, or concept: beauty, sweetness, childhood, love 

 Nouns: Countability 

Nouns are of two kinds from the viewpoint of countability:

 a) Countable nouns 

 b) Uncountable nouns 

Nouns that can be counted are called countable nouns: 

a book      one book         two books

 an egg      one egg           two eggs

 Generally a noun used in answer to the question how many? is a countable noun: 

  How many films did you watch?    I watched six films. 

 Uncountable nouns Nouns that cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns: 5 milk, water, ink, sugar, butter (not, a milk, one water, two sugar)

 A noun used in answer to the question how much? is an uncountable noun. 

How much milk do you need? We need a litre of milk.