A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. There are a number of ways to classify nouns.

Singular and Plural

“Singular” indicates there is one noun (e.g., student). “Plural” is the indication of one or more nouns (e.g., students). In most cases, we simply add s to the end of the word.

Irregular Plural Nouns

Many nouns have irregular plural forms:

• man — men
• woman — women
• child — children
• sheep — sheep

Common and Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are names. They are specific things. Common nouns are general.

Common	Proper
poem	“The Road Not Taken,” “Mending Wall”
nation	The United States of America, Germany, Thailand
magazine	Seventeen, Time, The Week
city	Moscow, Wroclaw, New York City, Greenville
athlete	Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps

Compound Nouns

Sometimes we join two or more words together to create a new word. This is very common in English (and German), and the result is called a compound noun. There are three types:

1. One word compound nouns simply join the two words together into a new word:
   seafood, grasshopper, daydream
2. Separate word compound nouns actually look like two words, but they’re one noun. These include an individual’s name, the title of a book, or the name of newspaper or magazine (among other things):
   compact disc, Abraman Lincoln, To Kill a Mockingbird
3. Hypenated word compound nouns use a hyphen between the two words to show they are one noun.
   self-esteem, thirteen-year-old, brother-in-law

Collective Nouns

A collective noun refers to a group.

• audience
• class
• jury
• team
• congress

Concrete and Abstract Nouns

Concrete nouns name things that are perceivable by one or more senses. In other words, one can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell a concrete noun.

• keyboard
• smoke
• music
• garlic

Abstract nouns are ideas, feelings, or qualities. These are things not perceptible by the senses.

• justice
• freedom
• love
• competition
• beliefs
• humor

See also Suffixes

Many examples are modelled from Elements of Writing by James Kinneavy and John Warriner.