Grammar Lesson: Types of Nouns

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. There are singular nouns that name ONE person (player), place (room), thing (towel), or idea (love), and there are plural nouns that are the names for MORE THAN ONE person (players), place (rooms), thing (towels), or idea (loves).

There are other types of nouns that are good to know. They include the following.

• Common nouns   begin with a lowercase (or small) letter since they name any person, place, thing, or idea. They are nonspecific. Some singular common nouns include actor (person), lounge (place), stick (thing), and kindness (idea). Plural common nouns include men (persons), headquarters (places), computers (things), and liberties (ideas).
• Proper nouns   begin with an uppercase (or capital) letter because they name specific persons, places, things, and ideas. Proper nouns include President Harry Truman (person), Eiffel Tower (place), American Federation of Teachers (thing), and Theory of Relativity (idea).
• Concrete nouns   name a person, place, thing, or idea that can be perceived by one or more of your senses (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling). Popcorn, thunder, rainfall, skunk, windmill, and hair are concrete nouns.
• Abstract nouns   name an idea, feeling, quality, or trait. Examples of abstract nouns include pity, weakness, humility, and elation.
• Collective nouns   name a group of people or things. Some collective nouns are squad, assembly, team, jury, flock, and herd.