Mass nouns are normally not used after the words a or an or after a number. There are a lot of deer in the woods near my house.'Ī mass noun (or noncount noun) refers to something that cannot be counted. Letters for you arrive regularly.' Sometimes the plural form of a count noun is the same as its singular form, as in 'I saw a deer in my yard yesterday. Count nouns have both singular and plural forms and can be used with both singular and plural verb forms, as with the word letter in 'A letter for you is on the table. A count noun is a noun that can be used after a or an or after a number (or another word that means 'more than one').

These nouns look like adjectives but they're not.įor learners of English, the most important feature of a noun is whether it can be counted. Gerunds are nouns that are identical to the present participle ( -ing form) of a verb, as in 'I enjoy swimming more than running.'Īn attributive noun is a noun that modifies another noun that immediately follows it, such as business in business meeting. ( British) 'The team have been doing well this season.' In the United States, such nouns as company, team, herd, public, and class, as well as the names of companies, teams, etc., are treated as singular, but in the United Kingdom they are often treated as plural: ( US) 'The team has been doing well this season.' vs. It's sometimes unclear whether the verb for a collective noun should be singular or plural. A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, or thing it usually begins with a capital letter: Abraham Lincoln, Argentina, and World War I are all proper nouns.Ī collective noun is a noun that names a group of people or things, such as flock or squad. Examples are animal, sunlight, and happiness. A common noun refers to a person, place, or thing but is not the name of a particular person, place, or thing. There are a number of different categories of nouns. It's usually a single word, but not always: cake, shoes, school bus, and time and a half are all nouns. A noun is a word that refers to a thing ( book), a person ( Noah Webster), an animal ( cat), a place ( Omaha), a quality ( softness), an idea ( justice), or an action ( yodeling).

Nouns make up the largest class of words in most languages, including English.

What is the meaning of noun