The Noun : Definition, Types and Examples
A Noun is the name of a person, animal, place, thing or quality.
All naming-words are Nouns, for example : Reena, boy, class, gold, kindness, etc.
There are five kinds of Nouns :
1. Proper nouns: India, Lucknow, Yamuna, Raman;
2. Common Nouns: boy, girl, person, city, river;
3. Collective nouns: army, class, navy, flock, family;
4. Material Nouns: gold, silver, aluminium, milk, sugar;
5. Abstract nouns: honesty, kindness, childhood, hatred, beauty.
1. PROPER NOUNS:
A Proper Noun is the same of a particular person, place or thing.
For example, Shivani is a Proper Noun, for it is the name of a particular girl. In the same way, Ganges is a Proper Noun, because it is the name of a particular river.
* A Proper Noun always begins with a Capital Letter.
NOTE: Proper nouns include the names of people, countries, cities, towns, villages, rivers, ships, streets, buildings, mountains, seas, months of the year, days of the week, festivals etc.
2. COMMON NOUNS
A Noun which does not point out any particular person, place or thing, but is common to all persons or things of the same class or kind is called a Common Noun.
For example, the name girl can be given to any and every girl - Sunita, Geeta, Rita, Salma etc. It does not point out any particular girl. It is common to all girls. It is, therefore, called a Common Noun. In the same way, the name river can be called a Common Noun, because it does not point out any particular river, such as Ganges, Yamuna, Gomati, Nile but is used for any and every river in any part of the world.
Other examples: book, bridge, pen, taxi, bird, man, city, animal etc.
3. COLLECTIVE NOUNS
A Collective Noun is the name of a collection of persons or things taken together and spoken of as one whole.
Examples:
The word bunch stands for a collection of keys.
The word class stands for a collection of students.
The word flock stands for a collection of sheep.
The word team stands for a collection of players.
4. MATERIAL NOUNS
A Noun which stands for the matter or substance of which things are made of is called a Material Noun.
Examples: iron, silver, gold, sugar, milk, cotton, wood, etc.
5. ABSTRACT NOUNS
An Abstract Noun is the name of some quality, feeling or an idea that we can only think of or feel but cannot touch or see.
Words like heat, beauty, wisdom, truth, love, anger, height, depth, etc. are Abstract Nouns. We can feel heat, but we cannot touch or see it. what we touch or see is a hot object and not heat. Similarly, we can think of love but cannot see or touch love.
Other examples: honesty (quality); sweetness (quantity); life, death (state), joy, lauther (action), etc.
Countable and Uncountable Nouns
1. Some Nouns stand for things that can be counted.
boy, girl, man, woman, room, house, school, cow, horse, etc.
We can say there are two, three or four of them, such as two boys, three girls, four houses or five cows. As we can count them, we call the Countable Nouns or simply Countables.
The name of things which can be counted as separate objects are called Countable Nouns or Countables.
Common Nouns and most of the Collective Nouns are Countable Nouns : boy, girl, woman, house, school, etc. (Common Nouns)
bunch, class, crowd, army, library, etc. (Collective Nouns)
2. Some other Nouns stand for things that cannot be counted:
rice, water, air, milk, gold, wood, sugar, etc.
We cannot say there are two, three or four of them. We cannot say two rices, three waters or four sugars. As we cannot count them, we call them Uncountable Nouns or simply Uncountables.
The names of things which cannot be counted as separate objects are called Uncountable Nouns or Uncountables.
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