Types of nouns
A noun refers to a person, animal or thing. Some examples are:
Nouns referring to people
Nouns referring to animals and things
The woman in the picture is my mother.
Her name is Anna. She’s from Manchester.
The diagram shows the different types of nouns and how they relate to one another.
Most nouns are common nouns, referring to classes or categories of people, animals and things.
Proper nouns are the names of specific people, animals and things. They are written with a capital letter at the start.
Concrete nouns refer to material objects which we can see or touch.
Abstract nouns refer to things which are not material objects, such as ideas, feelings and situations.
Gerunds
The -ing forms of verbs (gerunds) can also act as nouns.
Smoking is forbidden on all flights.
The City Council does its economic planning every September.
Countable nouns
Some nouns refer to things which, in English, are treated as separate items which can be counted. These are called countable nouns. Here are some examples:
a car, three cars
my cousin, my two cousins
a book, a box full of books
a city, several big cities
Identifying nouns
It is not always possible to identify a noun by its form. However, some word endings can show that the word is probably a noun.
SINGULAR AND PLURAL
Countable nouns can be singular or plural. They can be used with a/an and with numbers and many other determiners (e.g. these, a few):
She’s got two sisters and a younger brother.
Most people buy things like cameras and MP3-players online these days.
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