11 types of noun and how to tell them apart

11 TYPES OF NOUN

Nouns are words which name people, places, things or ideas

All of these words are nouns:

sunlight, John, cat, Mexico, trust

We can classify nouns in different ways…

1. CONCRETE NOUNS

2. ABSTRACT NOUNS

We can see, hear, taste, smell or touch the things that

CONCRETE nouns represent, for example:

apple, friend, Sydney Opera House

We can’t see, hear, taste, smell or touch the things

that ABSTRACT nouns represent:

trust, knowledge, progress

3. PROPER NOUNS

4. CONCRETE NOUNS

PROPER nouns refer to a specific person, place or thing.

They start with a CAPITAL letter…

Mark has a friend called John. They live in a house in

London.

COMMON nouns don’t refer to a specific person, place or

thing…

Mark has a friend called John. They live in a house in London.

5. SINGULAR NOUNS

6. PLURAL NOUNS

Nouns can be SINGULAR (only one)…

The baby held up one foot and one hand.

…or PLURAL (more than one)

Babies have two feet and two hands.

We usually add "s" to a singular noun to make it PLURAL:

hand - hands

But some nouns follow different rules, for example:

baby – babies, foot – feet, wolf – wolves, mouse - mice

7. COUNTABLE NOUNS

8. NON-COUNTABLE NOUNS

We can count some nouns…

1 apple

2 apples

3 apples

…but there are some nouns we can’t count

1 water

2 waters

3 waters

We’d have to put water into glasses (or drops) to count it

1 glass of water

2 glasses of water

3 glasses of water

That’s why countable nouns can be singular or plural…

apple

2 apples

…but non-countable nouns can’t be made plural

water

2 waters

9. POSSESSIVE FORMS

OF NOUNS

We use the POSSESSIVE form of a noun to show that it

"owns" something

This is my daughter’s dog

The children’s dinner is cold

The birds’ nest is in the tree

10. COLLECTIVE NOUNS

COLLECTIVE nouns talk about a group of people

or things made up of individual parts

The team was

playing well

The audience is

clapping

Collective nouns are singular if the individual parts

are acting together… The team was playing well

…and plural if they are acting individually. The team

got in their cars.

11. COMPOUND NOUNS

We can stick two words together to make a COMPOUND

noun

football, tablecloth

city-state, tractor-trailer

rocking chair, container ship

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