There are FOUR KINDS OF NOUNS –

COMMON Nouns,

PROPER Nouns,

COLLECTIVE  Nouns and

ABSTRACT Nouns.

 

Examples of Nouns

 

A COMMON NOUN

refers to any  one of a number of things of the same kind, such as as:  “man”, “country”, “lake” or “cloud”.  “Common” comes from a Latin word meaning “shared by several”.

 

A PROPER NOUN

is a name for one particular thing.  “Proper” comes from a Latin word meaning “own”.   (Think of property;  somebody owns the property.)  Thus a Proper noun can be given to only one thing at a time; it is an owned name.  A Proper noun begins with a capital letter, as “John”, “Australia”.

 

A COLLECTIVE NOUN 

is a name for a group of similar things,  the group forming one complete whole.  Example:  “There are many sheep in the field but there is only one flock of sheep.”  In this sentence sheep is a Common noun, because it may stand for any one and every  one sheep, but flock is a Collective noun, as it stands for all the sheep at once, and not for any one sheep  on its own.

 

An ABSTRACT NOUN

is the name given to something which has no substance, that is, to something which  cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted.  Examples are “poverty”,  “humility”,  “goodness”,  “laughter” and “hardness”.

 

            We know that a stone is hard.  We know that iron is hard.  We know that a brick is hard.  We can speak of hardness as being a quality apart from the stone, the iron, and the brick, or any other object having the same quality.  We can put our hands on the stone, the iron and  the brick,, but there is nothing to see or touch when we think of hardness.  We can go to the store and buy some stones or bricks or iron, but we cannot buy any hardness  as it does not exist.  We can think of stones and iron and bricks as having substance, whereas hardness has no substance.  So, hardness is called an abstract noun.

            Other examples are:  childhood, kingship, service, sight, fear, hope - and so on

 

The following words are all nouns, as they refer to the names of PERSONS:

Tom. Dick. Harry, Jenny, Joan, Jean, Kenneth, William, Thomas, Ronald, Rita, Reg.

These nouns all begin with a capital letter, which shows they  are owned by somebody; they refer to a particular person, not just to anyone in general.

 

Words such as   man, woman, boy, girl, lad, lass, child, baby, person, people, are also nouns, but they are not owned by any particular person; the names are common to many people.  So these words are all common nouns.

           

Note especially that the names are words, not persons.  It is the words that are nouns, not the persons.

 

The following words are all nouns as they refer to the names of PLACES:

Perth,  Adelaide,  Midland, Stratton, Australia, Holland,  England, America, Timor.

 

Note that these nouns all begin with a capital letter.  This indicates that they are all owned names.  So they are all Proper nouns.

 

But words such as river, mountain, lake, road, street, town, country, village, city are names that belong to any number of such things, or places; they are common to many things.  So they are all called Common nouns.

 

Words such as  hill, tree, river, bank, house, table, chair, knife, spoon, eggs, hens, bed, cat, dog, are all nouns as they are the names of THINGS.  These names are common to a great many such things, so they are called Common nouns.

 

But names such as Swan River, Commonwealth Bank, Mount Everest,  Morrison Road, are Proper nouns, as the names refer to particular things;  they are owned names.

 

The following words are all nouns because they refer to the names of THINGS.

They are all nouns; each one names something:   chair, table, dishes, computer, knife, meal, car, dog, garden, cloud, flower, tree.  These names are all called Common nouns.

 

EXERCISE

1.  Read through the following paragraph. Then underline the nouns.  (There are 15 nouns altogether.)

 

            Once upon a time, Hans Hannekemaaier, with a scythe on his back, came into the land near Edam Town where they make cheeses.  How he stared his eyes out!  The meadows were so lush and green, and the cows so big,  The farmers, long pipes in their mouths, were strolling about the fields with a lordly air.

 

Now make a list of all the nouns and beside each one write what kind of a noun it is – Common noun, (Common nouns are everywhere, and you use them all the time, even if you don’t realize it. Wherever you go, you’ll find at least one common noun. Street, closet, bathroom, school, mall, gas station; all of these places are named using common nouns).

People in general are named using common nouns, though their official titles or given names are proper nouns. When we refer to people using common nouns, we use words like teacher, clerk, police officer, preacher, delivery driver, boyfriend, girlfriend, grandma, cousin, and barista.

Collective nouns  You might not know it, but you encounter collective nouns in everyday speech. Collective nouns are words for single things that are made up of more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea. You can’t have a team without individual members; even so, we discuss a team as a single entity.

http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/collective-nouns/

Abstract nouns are words that name things that are not concrete. Your five physical senses cannot detect an abstract noun – you can’t see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, or touch it. In essence, an abstract noun is a quality, a concept, an idea, or maybe even an event.

Abstract nouns and concrete nouns are usually defined in terms of one another. Something that is abstract exists only in the mind, while something that is concrete can be interacted with in a physical way. Qualities, relationships, theories, conditions, and states of being are some examples of the types of things abstract nouns define.

http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/abstract-nouns/

•  Proper noun, Collective noun or Abstract noun.

 

Two of the nouns are worked for you.

      Noun                           Kind of Noun

1.  time                                          Abstract noun

2.  Hans Hannekemaaier  Proper noun

Examples of Nouns

Abstract Nouns – name things you can’t perceive with your five senses

advice	anger	belief	bigotry
communication	compassion	darkness	death
fear	freedom	friendship	gratitude
happiness	hatred	help	heroism
history	honesty	hope	infancy
jealousy	knowledge	life	love
loyalty	manhood	misery	peace
pride	poverty	power	promise
reality	redemption	regret	religion
troupe	trust	wealth	wisdom

Collective Nouns – a group of people or things

army	audience	band	bevy
bouquet	brood	bunch	caravan
cartload	choir	clan	colony
congregation	corps	drove	family
flock	gaggle	gang	group
herd	jury	mob	pack
panel	range	regiment	school
squadron	swarm	team	village

Compound Nouns – made up of two or more words

aftermath	anyone	blackboard	board of directors
bodyguard	court-martial	daughter-in-law	earthworm
eyeglasses	father-in-law	forget-me-not	grandfather
grasshopper	homemade	inside	jellyfish
jigsaw	keyboard	kneecap	lifetime
moonlight	mother-in-law	New York	overthrow
paperclip	photograph	pickpocket	pigtails
plaything	quicksand	railroad	rattlesnake
somewhere	snowflake	sunlight	tablecloth
upstream	uplift	wheelchair	windpipe

Countable Concrete Nouns – can be perceived with your five senses and can be counted

aardvark	banana	bed	bird
book	cat	clock	cookie
country	dog	eyes	flowers
house	light	match	movie
ocean	panther	pen	phone
photograph	planet	rain	speaker
sun	suitcase	sunset	train
ukulele	violin	walnuts	xylophone

Uncountable Concrete Nouns – cannot be counted

air	beer	blood	butter
cheese	clutter	currency	economics
electricity	flour	food	garbage
gas	ground	homework	honey
information	insurance	juice	lightning
milk	mud	music	news
rain	rice	sand	snow
timber	water	weather	wood

Verbal Nouns (Gerunds) – refer to actions

acting	asking	boating	bowling
camping	climbing	crawling	dancing
deceiving	destroying	eating	fishing
flying	golfing	growing	hiking
hopping	hunting	hurting	inserting
jogging	jumping	kayaking	living
making	moaning	naming	opening
painting	parasailing	placing	plotting
questioning	razing	rollerblading	rolling
running	shopping	skiing	smoking
snorkeling	surfing	swimming	talking
traveling	watching	watering	yodeling

Proper Nouns – name a particular person, place or thing

Africa	Atlantic Ocean	Australia	Beethoven
Big Ben	Chile	Clark Gable	Conoco
Disneyland	Elizabeth Taylor	Fluffy	Halley’s Comet
Honda	January	Jupiter	King Tut
Lake Eerie	La-Z-Boy	Minnesota	Michael
Minnesota	Mount Everest	Nelson Mandela	Notre Dame
Peking	Quebec	Rio Grande	Rocky Mountains
September	Stanford University	Starbucks	Susan
The New York Times	The Tower of London	Uncle George	United Nations
United States	Vincent van Gogh	Xerox	Zeus

 

During my Digital Media, Multimedia and some AIT or VET courses I got my students to work on The S.T.E.A.M.E.R book of knowledge, especially advanced students that complete tasks ahead of time, this was my fall back lessons for those clever or advanced students, they were asked to pick one of the areas of study and create a cover page, find some interesting facts and put their findings into a chapter of the book The book was 138 pages long at my retirement from teaching.

STEAMER Stands for

Science, Technology, English, Arts, Mathematics, Enivironment and Religion

For those students that presented work on English we gathered a lot of useful reference information that became a STUDENT's COMPENDIUM here are some samples of student work

Explanation for Compendium
File	Includes
SC001_abreviations	ANU - Australian National University
SC002_Acronyms	An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the first letter (or first few letters) of each word in a phrase or title. Sometimes, the newly combined letters create a new word that becomes a part of everyday language. An example of this is the acronym radar.
SC004_Adjectives	Adjectives are words that describe or modify other words * Priest = Sacerdotal
SC003_Animals	Apes - gibber, Camel live in Australia, Sahara & Arabia names = Bull - is called a heifer
SC004_Antonyms	Opposites = Absent - present
SC005_Big_Words for small	Anger - Dudgeon * bold - Audacious
SC006_Characteristics	A partner in crime - accomplice
SC007_Church	A passage between the pews in a church - Aisle
SC007_Commonly_confused_words	Council, an administrative or advisory body, do not confuse with counsel, advice or guidance. Homonyms
SC008_Countries	Aberdeen - The Granite City The Torrid Zone has the hottest climate Zinc - Mexico, U.S.A., Spain
SC013 Death Words pertaining to	Occurring after death - posthumous
SC009_Diminutives	Cask - casket
SC010_Famous	Matthew Flinders -discovered Bass Strait. * Lord Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts in 1908
SC011_Figurative_Expressions	Aloof -To keep to oneself and not mix with others.
SC012_Gender	Actor - Actress
SC013_Geography	The Circumference of the earth is approxinmately 24,800 miles.
SC014_Gods	War - Mars
SC015_Government	Australian Government
SC016_Grammar	Explains various uses of nouns verbs etc.
SC017_Human_Relationships	THE ART OF LIVING - Consideration for the feelings of others
SC018_Inventions	Clock (pendulum) - Christian Huygens
SC019_Kings_Queens of UK	EGBERT 827 - 839
SC020_Literary	A book in which the events of each day are recorded - Diary
SC021_Marriage	A hater of marriage - misogamist
SC022_Medical	A disease confined to a particular district or place - endemic
SC044_Metaphors	Metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated
SC023_Miscellaneous	All Fools' Day - 1st April - Aussie slang - sounds that things make etc.
SC024_Nouns	sit - seat (when to use Nouns)
SC025_Names	Boys & Girls names explained
SC026_Nature	A four-footed animal - quadruped
SC027_Negatives	That which cannot be pierced or penetrated - impenetrable
SC028_Numbers	A number of fish taken in a net - catch, haul
SC029_Opposites	Unable to read - il-literate
SC030_Patron Saints	St. George of England, St. Andrew of Scotland
SC031_Places	A place where fishes are kept - aquarium
SC032_Possessive_Case	Is the case which denotes the owner or possessor
SC045_Phobias	Noctiphobia - Fear of the night
SC033_Professions	The commander of a fleet - Admiral
SC034_Similes	Archates - a good friend * Belt = to hit below the belt
SC035_Proverbs	A bad beginning makes a good ending.
SC048_Sayings	as a drowned rat. - as ancient as the sun—as the stars.
SC036_Science_and_Arts	An instrument for detecting earthquakes - seismograph
SC037_Scientific_Terms	The science of land management - agronomics
SC038_Seven_Wonders	The Pyramids of Egypt
SC039_Synonyms	abandon....... desert, forsake, leave.
SC040_War	Nations carrying on warfare - belligerents
SC041_Weddings	7th year—Copper or Brass
SC042_Words_to_Verbs	strong - strengthen
SC043_Other	Any other items that might be of interest
SC044_Metaphors	Metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated
SC045_Phobias	Noctiphobia - Fear of the night
SC046_Death	Occurring after death - posthumous
SC047_Thesaurus	Thesaurus - abandon = abandoned, abandoning, abandonment, abandons affluent =having an abundant supply of money or possessions of value,words explained and incorrect use of words
SC048_Sayings	as afraid as a grasshopper.
SC049_UrbanMyths	The floor was dirt.  Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor."

Please note there are some excellent links to assist with these pages

see at the end for the links for further information. 

 

Applied Information Technology * AITStage1 * AITStage2 * AITStage3 * Cert II Business * Cert II Information Technology * Multimedia

Subjects * Art * Computing * English * Geography * Hass * History * Mathematics

Miscellaneous * Acronyms * Accreditation * ICT_Homework * Naplan * Lessons * Quizzes * Relief Lessons * Proverbs * Sayings * Student Compendium

Exams & Tests * Student Survival Kit * Web quests * Worksheets * Home Page * Peters Site * Soccer

Abbreviations Acronyms Animals Antonymns Big Words for Small Words Characteristics Church Countries Cities

Death Diminutives Famous Figurative Expressions Gender Geographical Gods and Goddesses Government Grammar and Syntax  Human Relationships Inventions Kings and Queens Literary Sentences Marriage Medical Metaphors Miscellaneous Nouns Names Nature Negatives Numbers Opposites Patron Saints Places Possessive Case Phobias Professions Proverbs Science & Arts Scientific Terms Seven Wonders Similies Thesaurus Synonyms War Words Wedding Words to Verbs Other Home

 

Email Peter Faulks

Page last updated 2nd March 2020