Category: Nouns

 

Nouns : Abstract Nouns

An abstract noun is a word which names something that cannot be experienced by the five senses.  You cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste.

Abstract nouns can be hard to spot. Take for example ‘laughter’. There is a point of view that says it is an abstract noun, a concept; others maintain that because you can hear it, it can not be an abstract noun…

Other similar examples exist, but it is not worth the worry of trying to figure it out. The best thing you can probably do is to arm your pupils with a list of confirmed abstract nouns and teach them the principle behind them being such.

Common Abstract Nouns

Showing Human Qualities or Characteristics

beauty, bravery, brilliance, brutality. calm, charity, coldness, compassion, confidence, contentment, courage, curiosity, dedication, determination, ego, elegance, enthusiasm, envy, evil, fear, generosity, goodness, graciousness, hatred, honesty, honour, hope, humility, humour insanity, integrity, intelligence, jealousy, kindness, loyalty, maturity, patience, perseverance, sanity, self-control,  sensitivity, sophistication, stupidity, sympathy, talent, tolerance, trust, weakness, wisdom, wit

Showing Emotions/Feeling

adoration, amazement, anger, anxiety apprehension, clarity, delight, despair, disappointment, disbelief, excitement, fascination, friendship, grief, happiness, hate, helpfulness, helplessness, infatuation, joy, love, misery, pain, pleasure, power, pride, relaxation, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, silliness, sorrow, strength, surprise, tiredness, uncertainty, wariness, weariness, worry

More Examples of Abstract Nouns

ability, adventure, artistry, awe, belief , chaos, comfort, communication, consideration, crime, culture, customer service, death, deceit, defeat, democracy, dexterity, dictatorship, disquiet, disturbance, dream, energy, enhancement, failure, faith, faithfulness, faithlessness, favouritism, forgiveness, fragility, frailty, freedom, grace, hearsay, homelessness, hurt, idea, idiosyncrasy, imagination, impression, improvement, inflation, information, justice, knowledge, law, liberty, life, loss, luck, luxury, memory, mercy, motivation, movement, need, omen, opinion, opportunism, opportunity, parenthood, patriotism, peace, peculiarity, poverty, principle, reality, redemption, refreshment, riches, rumour, service, shock, skill, slavery, sleep, speculation, speed, strictness, submission, success, thought, thrill, truth, unemployment, unreality, victory, wealth.

There is this useful  word list of abstract nouns with definitions which, in addition to simply defining their meaning, demonstrates how abstract nouns are used in context, .

Nouns : Compound Nouns

A compound noun is a noun that is made up of at least two words: firewood, pet shop, jack-in-the-box, blackboard,post office, six-pack

There are three forms for compound nouns:

• With Spaces: ice cream, water tank, printer cartridge
• Without Spaces: footprint, stopwatch, suitcase
• With Hyphens: merry-go-round, passer-by, daughter-in-law

There are no hard and fast rules on which form to use. Just be aware that many of the words exist in more than one form.

You’ll just have to look them up if there is any doubt, Google is as good as anywhere…

Composition of Compound Nouns

Though there is no need for pupils of primary school age to be aware of any of what follows, I have included it for interest’s sake…

Most compound nouns are made up of two nouns or an adjective and a noun. For example:

• Noun + Noun: bath tub, witchcraft, seaman, wall-paper
• Adjective + Noun: hardware, highway, full moon, whiteboard

Compound elements	Examples
noun + noun	bedroom water tank motorcycle printer cartridge
noun + verb	rainfall haircut train-spotting
noun + adverb	hanger-on passer-by
verb + noun	washing machine driving licence swimming pool
verb + adverb	lookout take-off drawback
adverb + noun	onlooker bystander
adjective + verb	dry-cleaning public speaking
adjective + noun	greenhouse software redhead
adverb + verb	output overthrow upturn input

Nouns : Common Nouns & Proper Nouns

A noun is a kind of word that gives a name to  a person, a place, an object, an animal, a substance, a quantity, a period of time, a distance; the list goes on.

Everything around us is represented by a word that gives it its name and that word is called a noun.

The first major distinction to draw is between common nouns and supermarket.

Common Nouns

The common noun, is by far the largest group of nouns. The job of the common noun is to give a name to the everyday things all around us. Take a look around your surroundings and make a list of objects which you can see, the list will most likely be made up entirely of common nouns : chair, table, floor, pen, ceiling, ruler, paper, floor, tree, grass – the list is virtually endless…

Common nouns do NOT get capital letters.

P:roper Nouns

A proper noun is the name given to a specific person, place, object, animal, etc : Susan, London, Blackpool Tower, Rex).

Proper nouns ALWAYS get capital letters.

Common Noun	Proper  Noun
car	Jaguar, Land Rover, Fiesta
forest	Forest of Dean
cat, dog, budgie	Tiddles, Fido, Joey
sea, ocean	North Sea, Atlantic Ocean
pub	The Blacksmith’s Arms
monarch	Queen Elizabeth II
supermarket	Tesco, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s
tea	PG Tips, Yorkshire Tea
cola	Pepsie, Coke

Common nouns may be further subdivided into a number of categories; all common nouns will fall into at least one of these categories, For the purposes of the primary school classroom (in addition to common nouns and proper nouns) if a student can identify compound, collective and abstract nouns this is probably sufficient. The others have been included for the sake of completeness and interest:

• compound nouns
• collective nouns
• abstract nouns
• concrete nouns
• countable nouns
• non-countable nouns
• gender specific nouns
• verbal nouns
• gerunds

Nouns : Gender

Generally speaking, there is no distinction between masculine and  feminine when it comes to nouns in English.

However, gender is sometimes shown by different forms or different words when referring to some people or animals people or animals.

Many nouns that refer to people’s roles and jobs can be used for either a masculine or a feminine subject, like for example cousin, teenager, teacher, doctor, student, friend, colleague

• Helen is my colleague. She is a teacher.
• Phillip is doctor. He is my friend.
• Darren is my cousin. He is a student.
• Jenny is my cousin. She is a student.

Sometimes as a term of endearment non gender specific nouns are given gendered pronouns.

• Dad loves his old sport scar . He takes her (the car) for a spin every Saturday;
• Britain is popular with her (Britains’s) neighbours since the Brexit referendum.
• Cruised across the Atlantic in the QEII ; she (the QEII ) is a fabulous ship.

Nouns : Singular & Plural

There are a number of different rules when it comes to making nouns plural…

A noun that refers to a SINGLE object or person is SINGULAR in number. A noun which refers to MORE THAN one object or person is said to be PLURAL in number. The The plurals of nouns can be formed in a number of different ways.

1. A plural is most often formed by simply adding an ‘s’ at the end of the singular form of the noun:

eg. boy: boys, dog: dogs, tree: trees, etc.

This also works for nouns ending in ‘y’ but only where the letter before the ‘y’ is a vowel.

eg: boy: boys, day: days, turkey: turkeys, tray: trays.

2. If a noun ends in ‘s’,’sh’,’ch’or ‘x’, the plural is formed by adding ‘es’.

Eg: boxes, churches, thrushes, passes, etc.

3. If the noun ends in ‘y’ and the letter before the ‘y’ is a consonant then the plural is formed by changing the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and adding’es’.

eg: berry: berries, cherry: cherries, bunny: bunnies, factory: factories, etc.

4. Sometimes, but not always, nouns that end in ‘f’ make their plurals by changing the ‘f’ to a ‘v’ then adding ‘-es’.

eg: leaf: leaves, loaf: loaves, half: halves, thief: thieves.

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