Nouns in Action: Definitions, various types and real-life examples

Explore the world of nouns and learn through various how to use them in writing and speech. Learn all about nouns through this comprehensive guide.

Naming Words and Special Words

Some words are the names of persons, names of animals or birds, names of places, names of things. All such words are called naming words.

• Persons: Gardener, Tailor, Barber
• Animals/Birds: Lion, Pigeon, Cow
• Places: Market, Hotel, Street
• Things: Bench, Banana, Train

If a naming word ends in y, we change it from one to many by replacing ‘y’ with ‘ies’. For example, lady becomes ladies.

Naming words are of two types: Common names and Special names. Special names always begin with a capital letter.

Examples: Boy and Girl are common names. Shaurya and Sakshi are special names. Dog is a common name. Moti is a special name.

All naming words are nouns. They may be names of persons, places, animals, or things. They may also be names of actions and qualities.

For example:

• Mrs Roy teaches us Maths.
• He stays in Delhi.
• He won an award for bravery.

Nouns can further be divided into different kinds:

COMMON NOUN

Common Noun is a noun which is a general name for the same kind of things, persons or places. A common noun does not refer to any particular thing, person or place.

Example: I have a book of puzzles.
Common Nouns: book, puzzles
More example of common nouns: child, book, flower, city, country, day, river, tree, man, insect, teacher, book, bag, cap, tent, bird, chair

PROPER NOUN

A special or personal name given to a particular person, place or thing is called a Proper Noun. A Proper Noun always begins with a capital letter.

Example: Amit picked up the book
Proper Noun: Amit, Common Noun: book
More example of proper nouns: Richa, Chennai, Taj Mahal, New Zealand, Sunday, Rohit, the Bible, Bangalore, China, the Ganga etc.

COLLECTIVE NOUN

Collective Nouns are group names which refer to a collection of persons, things, animals etc. A Collective Noun stands for a gooup of people, things, animals etc. taken together as a whole. For example: an army of soldiers, a bunch of keys, a herd of cattle etc.

MATERIAL NOUN

Different substances or materials are used to make different things. The name of the substance or material used to make anything is called a Material Noun. For example: wood, cotton, silk, gold, clay, copper etc.

ABSTRACT NOUN

Abstract Nouns are names of qualities or actions which we can think about, but which we cannot see or touch. For example: childhood, health, bravery, love etc.

Countable Noun
Things that we can count are called countable nouns. Countable nouns may be one or many: book-books, cat-cats.
Things that we cannot count are called uncountable nouns. Nouns, such as sugar, milk, water and grass are examples of uncountable nouns.

A noun is countable if you can:

• put a/an before it (a cottage)
• put a number before it (four bags)
• make it plural or more than one (bags)

Examples:
The old lady was carrying four bags
The pot was full of porridge
In the above examples, bags and porridge are naming words. We can count bags but we cannot count porridge.

Reflexive Noun
WE sometimes do actions that turn back on us. We use reflexive pronouns to show that these actions turn back to the doer.

Example:
The boy hurt himself.
The goblin bought himself a pair of shoes.

I – myself, You – yourself
He – himself, She – herself
It – itself
WE – ourselves, They – themselves

More examples of reflexive nouns.

My dog hurt himself.
She bought herself a book.
My parents made themselves some soup
My friends and I enjoyed ourselves at the picnic.

Read: Parts of Speech (Word Classes) Explained

studymumbai

StudyMumbai.com is an educational resource for students, parents, and teachers, with special focus on Mumbai. Our staff includes educators with several years of experience. Our mission is to simplify learning and to provide free education. Read more about us.