What is a noun?

A noun is a word that represents a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. Any thing that you can think of is probably a noun.

Nouns often come after articles, such as the words ‘a’ or ‘the’, or determiners, such as ‘this’ or ‘many’.

Some examples of nouns include: paper, kindness, and peanut.

Let’s look at some example sentences.

Oil floats on water.

‘Oil’ and ‘water’ are both things.

Mary exercises at the gym.

‘Mary’ is a person, and ‘gym’ is a place.

The student learned about democracy.

‘Student’ is a person, and ‘democracy’ is an idea.

How do I identify nouns in sentences?

One of the problems with English is that some words can be different parts of speech depending on how they are used. This makes both learning and teaching English a little more difficult. Consider the following two sentences:

Doctors help sick people.

I need all the help I can get.

The word help is used in both sentences. One represents an action, and the other represents a noun. Can you see the difference?

In the first example, the word help is a verb because it describes the action that is done. It is what doctors do.

In the second example, the word help is a noun because it is the thing that is needed.

Categories of Nouns

There are several categories of nouns, and nouns can fall under more than one category. Some of the categories include common and proper nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, uncountable and countable nouns, compound nouns, and collective nouns.

Noun
(bicycle, Mary, idea)

Proper Noun
(Paris, Mary, Toyota)

Common Noun
(city, woman, car)

Countable Noun
(table, pencil, house)

Uncountable Noun
(water, sand, knowledge)

Abstract Noun
(freedom, kindness)

Concrete Noun
(book, tree)

Collective Noun
(family, team, class)

Compound Noun
(football player, hot dog, handbag)

Let us know what you think!

Need further clarification? Do you have any suggestions on how to improve our examples or explanations? We look forward to seeing your comments below.