Kinds Of Nouns And Their Meaning

We all use nouns while speaking in every sentence that we speak on a daily basis; a noun is actually a part of speech that is used to name places, things, quality, people and action. There are various kinds of nouns and their meaning that we will be learning now to further simplify the use of nouns. Nouns can be classified as common noun, proper noun, abstract noun, collective nouns, animate nouns, pronouns and compound nouns. Let us understand these kinds of nouns and their meaning and how we can use them in our daily lives.

Common noun

A common noun is usually used to classify a place, person or a thing. Some of the common examples of these nouns are town, cities, man, metal etc. They are further classified in to the following types of nouns.

Abstract Nouns – These kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes that they are the things you cannot see or touch – EX- Happiness, Bravery, justice etc

Collective Nouns – These kinds of nouns are used to describe a group of things – EX – Band, Team etc

Mass Nouns – These kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes that they are things that cannot be counted – EX – Grains, Music etc

Concrete Nouns – These kinds of nouns are the opposite of abstract nouns, they are things you can see or touch – EX- Leaves, Roads etc

Gender Specific Nouns – These nouns as the name suggest are used when the gender of the person is specifically know – EX- Tigress, mare etc

Proper Noun

Proper nouns are specific kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes the name of a place, thing or a person. As a rule while writing any proper noun, the first alphabet is always written in capital. Some common examples of proper noun are India, John, The Eiffel Tower, Bengal Tiger, and Lake Tahoe etc. When addressing a person along with his title, the title, though could be a common noun is also written in capital as it is a part of the person’s name. Ex – Sir Robert Johnson, Uncle Sammy, Grandpa George, Cousin Barney etc

Pronouns

These kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes that a word is been used to replace a noun. They may be sometimes classified as a different part of speech, but in essence they are still nouns. Some common examples of pronouns are he, she it, they, this, who etc.

Compound Nouns

Compound Nouns – These kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes nouns that are made from more than one word. They can be sometimes hyphenated while some other times they combine to make a new word. Some common examples of compound nouns are Body-guard, Maidservant, Paper-clip, Brother-in-law etc.

Verbal Nouns – These kinds of nouns and their meaning denotes that they originate from verbs and typically end in an ING. They are also commonly known as Gerunds and they can modify an object with an adverb. Some common examples of Verbal nouns are walking, swimming, talking, thinking, sleeping etc.

These are some known kinds of nouns.