Nouns

Common Nouns

Common nouns are general names for people, things, animals and places.

Example: doctor, house, elephant, village, town, etc.

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are specific names for people, things, animals and places. The first letter of a proper noun is usually capitalised.

Example: Misha, James, Honda, Dumbo, Kota Kinabalu, Japan, etc.

Concrete (countable)  Nouns

Concrete nouns are names of something or someone that can be experienced through our five senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. Most concrete nouns are countable. They can be in singular or plural .

Example: Singular – salesman, watch, car, kitchen, mountain, city, etc.

                  Plural –salesman, watches, cars, kittens, mountains, cities, etc.

Mass (uncountable)  Nouns

Mass nouns are names of objects that cannot be counted. These nouns only exist in singular forms. This means that we cannot add ‘-s’ to make the nouns plural.

Example: Water, oil, salt, steel, etc.

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are words that refer to a group of people or things, but these words are singular in form.

Example: furniture, jewellery, swarm, flock, pride, etc.         

Abstract Nouns

Abstract nouns are the opposite of concrete nouns. They cannot be experienced through our five senses because they do not have any physical existence. They are names given to feelings or ideas.

Example: honesty, jealousy, fairness, etc.

Compound Nouns

Compound nouns are nouns made up of a combination of two or more words. The combined words form a new word and carry a different meaning from the original words. They can be written as one word, separate words or hyphenated words.

Example: football, toothbrush, fruit juice, bus stop, role-play, mother-in-law, etc.