What is Noun? Definition And Types of Nouns

Everything we see or feel around us has a name. We can recognize them by their names. In English, we call the name a noun. In this post, we are sharing some information about nouns.

What is a Noun?

A noun is called a naming word in English. With this, we can name living beings i.e. persons, animals, birds, tree plants as well as inanimate objects, any idea, emotion, or place.

For example:

There is a boy whose name is Rahul. So Rahul is a noun, and also the word “boys” is also a noun.

On the way we saw some people, some of them were boys and some were girls. Here people, boys, and girls are nouns.

If you are walking in a garden, you see some trees there. Here “tree” is also a noun which is the name of some living being. In the garden, you saw some mango trees, guava trees, and coconut trees. It is all are nouns.

Suppose you are living in a city and the name of that city is Mumbai. So Mumbai is also a noun.

You have a dog, or cat in your house. So this is also a noun.

The things that are around you and you are giving them a name or identifying them by some name is all called noun.

Definition of Noun

If we look at the definition of a noun, a noun is a word that serves as the name of a person or other living beings, place, thing, idea, or feeling.

How many types of nouns are there?

There are many types of nouns such as proper nouns, common nouns, concrete nouns, collective nouns, compound nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, abstract nouns, singular nouns, etc. Let us know about these nouns one by one.

1. Proper nouns:

A proper noun is a noun that refers to a specified name. That specified name can be the name of a person or other living being, thing, place, idea, or feeling.

For example, Ravan was the king of Lanka. Here Ravan is the name of a specified person, hence it is a proper noun. And Lanka is the name of a specified country, so it is a proper noun.

2. Common noun:

A common noun is a noun that refers to the name of people, places, or things in general. Here you cannot identify any specified things or persons.

For example, Last Night a dog was barking. In this sentence, “dog” is a common noun. Because you don’t know which dog was barking, but a dog was barking.

Let’s look at another example. Children are making noise in class. Here both children and class are common nouns. Because there are many classes in the school and children are making noise in all the classes.

3. Concrete nouns:

The concrete noun refers to the name of a living being or things that can be seen, touched, smelled, and heard.

Such as dogs, buildings, trees, tea, coffee, etc.

You can also call a concrete noun a material noun.

4. Collective nouns:

A collective noun is a noun that indicates the name of a group of persons, animals, things, or ideas.

For example audience: This is a group of some people in one place. Family is also the name of a group of members of a house.

5. Abstract nouns:

An abstract noun is a noun that refers to a thing, idea, thought, or feeling that cannot be seen or touched. They have no physical existence. Such as confidence, laughter, success, anger, happiness, smile, etc. You cannot see or touch them but these are nouns.

6. Countable nouns:

A countable noun is a noun that denotes the names of things that we can count. We can put a number before them. Like 2 tables, 3 chairs, 5 lamps, etc.

These nouns have singular and plural forms. For example, 1 table is used for singular and 5 tables for plural.

7. Uncountable nouns:

An uncountable noun is a noun that denotes names that we cannot count. They do not have any plural form. We cannot put a number before these nouns.

For example furniture. We cannot call furniture as 2 furniture. It does not have any plural form.

8. Compound Nouns:

The noun which is formed by the union of two or more nouns to form a single noun is called a compound noun.

Like blackboard, it is a mixture of two nouns (black + board). Some compound nouns also come up in separate words. Like a washing machine, this is an example of a compound noun.

Apart from this, the noun denotes one or more people, places, or things.

9. Singular noun:

A noun that denotes one person, place, or thing is called a singular noun.

For example, a house – denotes a single house, and a cat – denotes a single cat.

10. Plural noun:

A noun that denotes the name of more than one person, place, animal, or thing is called a plural noun. Like cats – it is showing more than one cat, and dogs – it is showing more than one dog.

You can read it in Hindi also.