Nouns English Grammar

Noun meaning, Types, Examples, and usage

14th June 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello readers, Welcome to Edify English. In this article we are going to discuss Noun Meaning, types of Nouns with example sentences. In the forthcoming articles on nouns, we will be posting noun exercises. Stay tuned!

Noun Meaning

Noun is a word used to identify Person, people, places, or things. Simply, it is a Naming Word.

Examples of Nouns

Consider the following

Alexander – Name of a Person
Americans – Name given to the people of America
New York – Name of a place
Pen – Name of a thing (Object having physical existence)
Courage – Name of a Quality (No physical existence)

Thus if we name anything using a word, that word becomes Noun. Depending upon what we name using a Noun, there are some types of it.

Types of Nouns

There are basically four types of nouns based on what the word used as the noun names. They are

Common Noun
Proper Noun
Collective Noun
Abstract Noun

Let us see each of them mentioned above in detail

Common Noun

A common noun is a name that is given to any one of a class of persons, places, or things.

Example: King, City, Pen

Each of the above examples represent certain class of Persons, places or things

We use the noun King to name all the kings in the world in common. Hence it is a common Noun. Similarly, we use the Noun City to name any city and the Noun Pen to name pen of any brand. Hence these are common Nouns.

If you carefully observe, if one of the King or city or Pen is given a particular name, then it becomes Proper Noun.

Proper Noun

As said above, the name of a particular person, place or thing is called Proper Noun.

Example:

Alexander (Name of a particular king)
New York (name of a particular city)
Parker (name of a particular brand of pens)

Thus a Common Noun is a common attribution where as a Proper Noun is a Unique attribution.

Read: Difference Between Common Noun and Proper Noun

Collective Noun

A collective noun is the name of people or places or things taken collectively.

Examples:

Crowd – group of people
Army – group of soldiers
Fleet – group of ships
Flock – group of birds

Abstract Noun

An abstract noun is the name of a quality or general idea that we consider apart from the object to which it belongs. Generally these are derived from Adjectives, Common Nouns and Verbs

Examples:

Abstract Nouns derived from Adjectives:

Kind (Adjective) – Kindness (Abstract Noun)
Honest (Adjective) – Honesty (Abstract Noun)
Angry (Adjective) – Anger (Abstract Noun)

Abstract Nouns derived from Common Nouns:

King (Common Noun) – Kingship (Abstract Noun)
Child (Common Noun) – Childhood (Abstract Noun)
Slave (Common Noun) – Slavery (Abstract Noun)

Abstract Nouns derived from Verbs:

Grow (Verb) – Growth (Abstract Noun)
Obey (Verb) – Obedience (Abstract Noun)
Live (Verb) – Life (Abstract Noun)

Also Read: Noun Gender, Examples of Nouns used in Sentences

10 Examples of Noun Sentences of Various Kinds

13th January 2019 By Edify English 3 Comments

Hello everyone. Now that we have learnt Nouns topic, its time to analyse the topic using example sentences. If you haven’t learnt the basics of Nouns, this article is for you. In this article, lets discuss 10 examples of Noun Sentences in all categories of Nouns.

10 Examples of Noun Sentences :

There are four Kinds of Nouns basically. They are,

Proper Nouns
Common Nouns
Collective Nouns
Abstract Nouns

10 Examples of Proper Nouns

Asoka was a wise king.
Sita is a good girl.
London is on the bank of the river Thames
Kalidasa is the Shakespeare of India
Paris is the capital of France
China is the most populous country in the world
Bill Gates is the richest person in the world
Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the transmission of malaria.
Rama Killed Ravana
Antarctica is the coolest country in the world.

10 Examples of Common Nouns

Tiger as the National Animal of India
The book is on the table
Sita is a good girl.
Kolkata is a beautiful city.
India is the second most populous country in the world.
Kalidasa is the Shakespeare of India
Hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world.
Blue Whale is the largest aquatic animal.
Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world
Trees are good for the environment

10 Examples of Collective Nouns

The French army was defeated at the battle of Waterloo.
The police dispersed the crowd
The jury found the prisoner guilty
A herd of cattle is passing
I found a bunch of keys on the road
Rama has a beautiful family.
United States has the world’s largest fleet.
Suguna is one of the active members of the team.
The committee consists of eminent jurists.
Knesset is the name of the Parliament of Israel

10 Examples of Abstract Nouns

Rama is known for his kindness
Childhood is the best part in my life
Death is inevitable for all.
He is unfortunately accused in the theft
Honesty is the best policy
Hanuman is the symbol of loyalty
The Mona Lisa is the most beautiful painting of all time.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States
He has a a thirst for knowledge
He got a medal for bravery

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

The Noun Case – Nominative, Objective and Possessive

13th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

The Noun Case : Consider the following sentence,

Ahmed threw a ball.

In the above sentence, Ahmed is the subject and it is the answer to the question, ‘Who threw the ball?’ The rest of the sentence threw the ball is the predicate and the the answer to the question, what did Ahmed throw? is a ball.. Hence ball is the object. In this article lets discuss the Noun Case in detail.

The Noun Case

There are three Noun Cases in English.

Nominative Case
Objective Case
Possessive Case

Nominative Case

When a noun or a pronoun is used as the subject, it is said to be in the Nominative Case. To find the Nominative in the sentence, put who or what before the verb.

For example: In the sentence, the dog bit the boy, the dog is the subject and it is the answer to the question What bit the boy? Hence it is said to be in the Nominative Case.

Objective Case

When a Noun or a Pronoun is used as the object of a verb it is said to be in the Objective Case. To find the object in the sentence, put whom or what before the verb and the subject.

For example: In the sentence, the horse kicked the boy, the subject is the horse and the answer to the question whom did the horse kick is the boy. Hence in the above sentence the noun boy is the object and it is said to be in Objective Case.

The noun which comes after a preposition in a sentence is also said to be in the objective case.

Possessive Case

Consider the following sentence, this is Sita’s book.

Here, the form of the noun Sita is changed to Sita’s to show the ownership or possession. Hence ‘Sita’ is said to be in the Possessive Case. The possessive in a sentence answers the question, ‘Whose?’ Whose book is this? – Sita’s.

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

Noun Gender – Explained with examples

9th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Living beings are generally of either the male or female sex. When we compare the nouns Boy & Girl or Hero & Heroine, what do we notice? The first word in the pair is the name given to the class of male and the second word is of the class of female. In this article lets discuss the the Noun Gender topic in detail.

The Noun Gender

The word ‘Gender’ comes from the Latin ‘Genus’ meaning kind or sort. Gender of Nouns is basically of four types.

Masculine
Feminine
Common
Neuter

Lets see what each of these represent.

Masculine Gender

A noun denoting a male being is said to be of the Masculine Gender. For example, Rama, John, Boys, Lion – these are Masculine Gender as they denote a male being.

Feminine Gender

A noun denoting a female being is said to be of the Feminine Gender. For example, Lioness, Heroine – these are Feminine Genders as they denote a female being.

Common Gender

A Noun denoting either a male or a female is said to be of the Common Gender. For example: Parent, child, student etc. – these are of Common Gender as they are used in common to both the Masculine and Feminine Genders.

Neuter Gender:

A noun that denoting a thing that is neither male nor female is said to be of Neuter Gender. in other words a thing with out life are considered Neuter Gender.For Example: Book, Pen, Room, Tree etc.

Thus in English, the gender of a Noun is based on the sex or the absence of sex but not on the form of the noun as in case of other languages.

Personified Nouns and their Gender

Some objects having no life are often Personified i.e., they are treated as living beings. We see this kind of personification in Poetry commonly.

Masculine Gender is often applied to objects representing for strength and violence. For example, ‘Sun’ is often treated as masculine gender.
Feminine Gender is applied to objects representing beauty, gentle nature etc. For example, ‘Moon’ is generally treated as Feminine Gender.

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

Noun – Definition and Classification with examples

7th January 2019 By Edify English 1 Comment

Nouns are the first among the eight parts of speech in English Language. In this article lets discuss the Definition and Classification of Noun. For Introductory article on Parts of Speech Click Here

Nouns : Definition – Classification

Definition of a Noun:

A Noun is simply a naming word. It is a word used to refer the name of

A person (Particular or referred to in common)
A place (Particular or general)
A thing (referred to the same kind or class )
A collection of things
A notion

For example: Joe is a talented boy who lives in Visakhapatnam which is often referred to as City of Destiny

In the above sentence, the Nouns are: Joe- A person, Boy – a class of persons Visakhapatnam – a particular Place, Destiny – a notion.

Classification of Nouns:

Nouns are classified in different ways. The following are some of the common classifications.

Kinds of Nouns:

Proper Nouns
Common Nouns
- Collective Nouns
- Abstract Nouns

Proper Nouns: It is the name of a particular place or a person. It is one’s own. Hence a proper Noun is one’s own name.

Example: Rama is a great King. Here Rama is a proper noun that denotes the name of a particular person.

Remember that Proper Nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning.

Common Nouns: It represents a name given in common to every person or thing (the word thing is used to represent anything that we can think of) of the same class or kind.

Example: New York is a beautiful city. Here city is a Common noun.

Sometimes Proper Nouns are used as Common Nouns.

For example, in the sentence Kalidasa is called the Shakespeare of India, Shakespeare is used as a Common Noun whereas Kalidasa is still a Proper Noun. In the sentence Shakespeare doesn’t represent a Person but the common quality or the class of being great dramatists.

Collective Noun: It is the name used to denote a number of persons or things taken together.

Example: The french army was defeated at the battle of waterloo. Here, Army (Collection of Soldiers) is a common.

Some more examples: Crowd, Flock, Herd, Family etc.

Abstract Noun: It is the name of quality, action, or state considered apart from the object to which it belongs.

Example: Hanuman is known for his loyalty. Here the word Loyalty is an abstract noun that shows the quality of Hanuman.

Abstract Nouns are formed from adjectives, verbs and some common nouns. For example, Goodness is formed from the adjective- good.

For example:

Obedience is formed from obey (verb)
Slave is a common noun and the word Slavery is an abstract noun.

Another Classification of Nouns:

Another classification of nouns is whether they are countable or uncountable.

Countable Nouns: Countable nouns are the names of things which we can count.

Example: Book, Pencil, Oranges etc.

Uncountable Nouns: Uncountable nouns are the names of the things which we cannot count. Example : Honesty, Purity, Milk etc. Uncountable nouns denote substances and abstracts.

Countable Nouns have plural forms whereas Uncountable nouns do not.
We can say ‘Pens’ but we cannot say ‘Oils’.

The rules to be followed while using nouns will be covered in the next article.

Also Read Articles In English Grammar

Improve your Vocabulary