What are nouns: people, places, things, and ideas

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea. It is frequently preceded by an article like the, an, or another determiner introducing the noun.

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A complete sentence typically consists of a subject and a verb; in most cases, the subject is a noun or pronoun. So, a noun may function as the subject of a verb, object of a verb, or both at the same time.

Some examples of different types of nouns include:

• Person: librarian, President of the United States, Marilyn Monroe, brother
• Place: park, Central Park, Madrid, bus station, basement
• Thing: kilometer, pickaxe, Saturday, stallion, hard drive, pony, water
• Idea: happiness, despair, Third Law of Physics, freedom

You’ll notice some of the example nouns are capitalized while others are not. That’s because some are common nouns, while others are proper nouns.

Common nouns vs. proper nouns

Meet the two different types of nouns: common and proper. A common noun is more of a generic term for something, like a geyser or a boy. These items are not capitalized unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence or within a title. A proper noun is the name of a specific person, place, or thing and is always capitalized. While geyser is a common noun, Old Faithful is a proper noun referring to a specific geyser and is therefore capitalized. The word boy is a common noun that’s only capitalized if it starts a sentence or in a title. Michael, Eric, and Jackson are all proper nouns and will always be capitalized because they’re names.

Types of common nouns

While common nouns are used as general terms, they can also be categorized further based on their meaning within a sentence.

• Abstract nouns are things that cannot be seen or touched like joy or ennui.
• Concrete nouns are tangible things like concrete or cement.
• Collective nouns refer to a group of things like a jury, a murder of crows, or a fleet of ships.
• Compound nouns consist of two or more words. Sometimes these words run together, like haircut and football. Sometimes they’re hyphenated, like mother-in-law. And other times they’re written as two separate words like swimming pool and ice cream.
• Gender-specific nouns denote a masculine or feminine identity. This appears in terms like mother and father but also in terms like actor and actress, and rooster and hen.
• Gerunds are formed from verbs and end in -ing, but they function as a noun. When you say that you are studying for an exam or apologizing to your sister, you’re using a gerund.
• Non-countable nouns cannot be pluralized. You’d never say musics—instead you refer to all music as music.
• Countable nouns may be used in their singular and plural forms. Sometimes this is as simple as adding an -s or an -es to the end of the word, and other times the plural form has its own spelling. For example, you might get detention for getting into a fight, but you might get expelled for getting into lots of fights.
• Verbal nouns are nouns that come from verbs but don’t function like verbs. For these nouns context is key. For example, the sentence “I swim every morning” uses swim as a verb, but saying “I go for a swim every morning” uses it as a noun. You can tell a verbal noun from a gerund because it is often both preceded and followed by a preposition.

Understanding the different kinds of nouns and how to use them equips you to write and edit with precision. Further fortify your writing skills with more grammar basics.