The Nouns | Kinds of Nouns

THE NOUN

A Noun is the name of person, place or a thing.

For eg : – Ashok went to the market.

Reena is a clever girl.

Note: – It should be noted that when we say noun is a name of a thing, it means any object or an abstract idea we can think of  for eg: –
Honesty or childhood

KINDS OF NOUNS

There are five different kinds of nouns.

  1. Proper Nouns
  2. Common Nouns
  3. Collective Nouns
  4. Material Nouns
  5. Abstract Nouns




PROPER NOUNS

A proper noun is the name of some particular person or place.

Proper nouns are always written in capital letters.

For eg:- 1. Shobha lives in Mumbai.
2. Rama was the son of Dasharatha.

COMMON NOUNS

A common noun is a noun who is common to any and every person or thing of the same kind for eg:-

The boy lives in a village.

The girl went to meet her friend.

COLLECTIVE NOUNS

A collective noun is the name of a collection of persons or things spoken as a whole for eg: – crowd, army, class etc.

  1. The jury found the prisoner guilty.
  2. The committee had a meeting on Monday.
  3. The herd of elephants become wild.

Note : – A distinction is generally made between a Collective Noun and a Noun of Multitude.

For eg :- When we say ‘ the Committee consists of twelve members’ here the collective noun ‘committee’ denotes one ‘ individual’ whole and hence the verb is singular but if we say ; “The Committee are quarrelling among themselves” here the Noun of Multitude denotes the individuals of the group and hence the verb is plural, although the noun is singular.




MATERIAL NOUN

A noun of material denotes to matter or substance of which things are made of : as gold, silver, iron, glass, stone, cotton.

For eg:- 1. Ornaments are made of gold and silver.
2. Clothes are made of cotton.

ABSTRACT NOUN

An Abstract noun is usually the name of a quality, action or state considered apart from the things to which it belongs.

Quality – kindness, wisdom, honesty, cleverness

State – childhood, youth, death, sickness, poverty.

Action – laughter, theft, flight etc.

Note: – The names of Arts and Sciences (eg: – grammar, music, biology etc) are also abstract noun.

Abstract noun is the noun of something that we can only think of as- hope doubt, greed, misery etc.

  1. Elephant has great strength.
  2.  Never tell a lie.
  3. Health is wealth.
  4. Wisdom is a great virtue.

Here the words strength, lie, health, wisdom, virtue are abstract nouns.




Another classification of Nouns is

  1. Countable nouns
  2. Uncountable nouns

Countable Nouns are the names of objects, people etc. that we can count.

For eg:- books, pens, cars, horse etc.

Uncountable Nouns are the names of things which we cannot count.

For eg:- milk, water, ink, honesty, gold etc.

Note: – Countable Nouns have plural forms like

Book – Books

Leaf – Leaves

While Uncountable Nouns do not have plural form like

Milk cannot be said as milks.

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