Nouns

What is a Noun?
Of all the parts of speech, nouns are perhaps the most important. A noun is a word that identifies
a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. Here, we’ll take a closer look at what makes a noun a
noun, and we’ll provide some noun examples, along with some advice for using nouns in your
sentences.

Identifying a Noun
A noun is a part of speech that denotes a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. The English word
noun has its roots in the Latin word nomen, which means “name.” Every language has words
that are nouns. As you read the following explanations, think about some words that might fit
into each category.

 Person – A term for a person, whether proper name, gender, title, or class, is a noun.
 Animal – A term for an animal, whether proper name, species, gender, or class is a noun.
 Place – A term for a place, whether proper name, physical location, or general locale is a noun.
 Thing – A term for a thing, whether it exists now, will exist, or existed in the past is a noun.
 Idea – A term for an idea, be it a real, workable idea or a fantasy that might never come to
fruition is a noun.

Noun Examples
When we first start to learn the parts of speech, trying to identify different words can seem like
a challenge. This process gets easier with practice. Here are some noun examples to help you
get started. The nouns in each sentence have been italicized.

 Person – He is the person to see.

 Person – John started to run.
 Person – Plato was an influential Greek philosopher.
 Person – Sharon admires her grandfather.
 Person – My mother looks a lot like my grandmother, and I look very much like them.

 Animal – The dog barked at the cat.

 Animal – Elephants never forget.
 Animal – Sophie is my favorite horse.
 Place – The restaurant is open.
 Place – Let’s go to the beach.
 Place – Look over there.
 Place – Come here.
 Place – Harvard and Yale are two famous universities.
 Place – Look! There’s the Eiffel Tower.

 Thing – Throw the ball.

 Thing – Please close the door and lock it.
 Thing – Use words properly to be understood.
 Thing – The lamp sits on a table next to the sofa.
 Thing – Money doesn’t grow on trees.

 Idea – Follow the rules.

 Idea – The theory of relativity is an important concept.
 Idea – Love is a wonderful emotion.

How Nouns Function

Nouns have several important functions. While it’s impossible to list them all here, we’ll go
over the most important jobs nouns are tasked with.

 Nouns are subjects. Every sentence has a subject, which is a noun that tells us what that
sentence is all about. John swung the baseball bat.
 Nouns are direct objects. These nouns receive action from verbs. John swung the baseball
bat.
 Nouns are indirect objects. These nouns receive the direct object. Brad threw John the ball.
 Nouns are objects of prepositions. These nouns follow the prepositions in prepositional
phrases. John swung the baseball bat at Greg.
 Nouns are predicate nominatives. These nouns follow linking verbs and rename the subject.
John is a baseball player.
 Nouns are object complements. These nouns complete the direct object. They named their
dog Max.
This is just the beginning. Be sure to dig deeper and explore more for additional information
about nouns and even more noun examples.

There are several different types of noun, as follows:

Common noun
A common noun is a noun that refers to people or things in general, e.g. boy, country, bridge,
city, birth, day, happiness.
Proper noun
A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing, e.g. Steven, Africa,
London, Monday. In written English, proper nouns begin with capital letters.
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. Examples include dog, building, coffee, tree, rain,
beach, tune.
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, e.g. truth, danger, happiness,
time, friendship, humour.
Collective nouns
Collective nouns refer to groups of people or things, e.g. audience, family, government, team,
jury. In American English, most collective nouns are treated as singular, with a singular verb:
The whole family was at the table.
In British English, the preceding sentence would be correct, but it would also be correct to treat
the collective noun as a plural, with a plural verb:

The whole family were at the table.

For more information about this, see matching verbs to collective nouns.
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.
Count and mass nouns
Nouns can be either countable or uncountable. Countable nouns (or count nouns) are those
that refer to something that can be counted. Uncountable nouns (or mass nouns) do not
typically refer to things that can be counted and so they do not regularly have a plural form.

Verbs

What is a verb?
Verbs are words that show an action (sing), occurrence (develop), or state of being (exist).
Almost every sentence requires a verb. The basic form of a verb is known as its infinitive.
The forms call, love, break, and go are all infinitives.
Almost all verbs have two other important forms called participles. Participles are forms
that are used to create several verb tenses (forms that are used to show when an action
happened); they can also be used as adjectives. The present participlealways ends in -
ing: calling, loving, breaking, going. (There is also a kind of noun, called a gerund, that is
identical in form to the present participle form of a verb.) The past participle usually ends
in -ed, but many past participles have irregular endings: called, loved, broken, gone.
The verb's past tense usually has the same -ed form as the past participle. For many verbs,
however, the past tense is irregular. An irregular past tense is not always identical to an
irregular past participle: called, loved, broke, went.
The two main kinds of verbs, transitive verbs and intransitive verbs, are discussed at the
entries for transitive and intransitive.

Adjective
What is adjective?
Adjectives describe or modify—that is, they limit or restrict the meaning of—nouns and
pronouns. They may name qualities of all
kinds: huge, red, angry, tremendous, unique, rare, etc.
An adjective usually comes right before a noun: "a red dress," "fifteen people." When an
adjective follows a linking verb such as be or seem, it is called a predicate adjective: "That
building is huge," "The workers seem happy." Most adjectives can be used as predicate
adjectives, although some are always used before a noun. Similarly, a few adjectives can
only be used as predicate adjectives and are never used before a noun.
Some adjectives describe qualities that can exist in different amounts or degrees. To do this,
the adjective will either change in form (usually by adding -er or -est) or will be used with
words like more, most, very, slightly, etc.: "the older girls," "the longestday of the year,"
"a very strong feeling," "more expensive than that one." Other adjectives describe qualities
that do not vary—"nuclear energy," "a medical doctor"—and do not change form.
The four demonstrative adjectives—this, that, these, and those—are identical to
the demonstrative pronouns. They are used to distinguish the person or thing being
described from others of the same category or class. This and these describe people or things
that are nearby, or in the present. That and those are used to describe people or things that
are not here, not nearby, or in the past or future. These adjectives, like
the definite and indefinite articles (a, an, and the), always come before any other adjectives
that modify a noun.
An indefinite adjective describes a whole group or class of people or things, or a person or
thing that is not identified or familiar. The most common indefinite adjectives are: all,
another, any, both, each, either, enough, every, few, half, least, less, little, many, more, most,
much, neither, one (and two, three, etc.), other, several, some, such, whole.
The interrogative adjectives—primarily which, what, and whose—are used to begin
questions. They can also be used as interrogative pronouns.
Which horse did you bet on? = Which did you bet on?
What songs did they sing? = What did they sing?

Whose coat is this? = Whose is this?

The possessive adjectives—my, your, his, her, its, our, their—tell you who has, owns, or
has experienced something, as in "I admired her candor, "Our cat is 14 years old," and
"They said their trip was wonderful."
Nouns often function like adjectives. When they do, they are called attributive nouns.
When two or more adjectives are used before a noun, they should be put in proper order.
Any article (a, an, the), demonstrative adjective (that, these, etc.), indefinite adjective
(another, both, etc.), or possessive adjective (her, our, etc.) always comes first. If there is a
number, it comes first or second. True adjectives always come before attributive nouns. The
ordering of true adjectives will vary, but the following order is the most common: opinion
word→size→age→shape→color→nationality→material.
Participles are often used like ordinary adjectives. They may come before a noun or after
a linking verb. A present participle (an -ing word) describes the person or thing that causes
something; for example, a boring conversation is one that bores you. A past
participle (usually an -ed word) describes the person or thing who has been affected by
something; for example, a bored person is one who has been affected by boredom.
They had just watched an exciting soccer game.
The instructions were confusing.
She's excited about the trip to North Africa.
Several confused students were asking questions about the test.

The lake was frozen.