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What is a noun?

Updated: Jun 20

Every single word in a sentence will belong to a word class, there may be times where a word's job differs and therefore it will belong to a different word class than other times you have used it. Today we are going to look specifically at word classes.


To put it simply, a noun is a thing; a place, object or person.


And in more complicated terms, there are 4 different types of nouns...


Concrete nouns


Abstract nouns


Collective nouns


Proper nouns


Yes, four! It seems insane to have five different types and makes this seem over complicated but it really is quite simple once you have gotten your head around it.


Concrete or Abstract?


It's very simple, most nouns will come under one of these categories.


A concrete noun - is a physical thing


(something you can see, hear, touch, smell, taste)



a bike, music, a ball, flowers, a milkshake



An abstract noun- is something that doesn't have a physical form


(a concept, an idea, a feeling)


love, friendship, happiness, betrayal


Simple right? Ok, so this is where things get a little more complicated.



A collective noun - describes a group of nouns.


(this sounds fancy but it really isn't)



a school of fish, a group of friends, a collection of thoughts, a bunch of flowers



A proper noun - names a specific noun (place, object or person)


(this will always start with a capital letter because they use an actual name of something or someone)


London, John, Tuesday, Galaxy bar


And finally, let's make a phrase...


A noun phrase - A group of words based around a noun



bright pink flowers


(flowers is just a noun, but bright pink flowers is a noun phrase)


dark and stormy night


hot coffee


stripy jumper

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