Okuzeka
Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Parts of Speech

Noun

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

/naʊn/nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, noun means: A word that names a person, place, thing, idea or feeling and can usually be the subject or object of a verb, such as teacher, Ankara, chair or freedom.

In Turkish: ad, isim

How it is used

Teachers classify nouns as countable or uncountable, common or proper, concrete or abstract. Linguists define nouns by their behaviour: they take plural -s, follow articles and act as the head of noun phrases.

Example sentences

  1. In 'The new teacher bought a laptop', teacher and laptop are nouns.

  2. Abstract nouns like information and advice are uncountable in English, so they never take -s.

Common collocations

  • proper noun
  • abstract noun
  • plural noun
  • collective noun
  • head noun
  • countable nounA noun that has singular and plural forms and can be used with numbers and a/an, such as book, idea or student; uncountable nouns like water or advice cannot.
  • noun phraseA group of words built around a noun or pronoun that works as one unit, often as subject or object, such as 'the tall man in the blue coat'.
  • pronounA word used in place of a noun or noun phrase so that it does not have to be repeated, such as she, it, them, mine, who or myself.
  • part of speechOne of the classes into which words are grouped by their grammatical behaviour, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction.
  • articleOne of the words a, an and the, used before a noun to show whether it is general or specific, and whether it is new or already known to the listener.

More terms: Parts of Speech

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: