A Noun is a word used as the name of a person, place or thing.
Note: The word thing is used to mean anything that we can think of.
Kinds of Noun
Def. - A Common Noun is a name given in common to every person or thing of the same class or kind.
[Common here means shared by all.]
Def. - A Proper Noun is the name of some particular person or place, [Proper means one's own. Hence a Proper Name is a person's own name.]
Note 1 - Proper Nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning.
Note 2 - Proper Nouns are sometimes used as Common Nouns; as,
1. . Kalidas is often called the Shakespeare (= the greatest dramatist) of India.
Common Nouns include what are called Collective Nouns and Abstract Nouns
A Collective Noun is the name of a number (or collection) of persons or things taken together and spoken of as one whole; as,
Crowd, mob, team, flock, herd, army, fleet, jury, family, nation, parliament, committee.
An Abstract Noun is usually the name of a quality, action, or state considered apart from the object to which it belongs; as.
Quality - Goodness, kindness, whiteness, darkness, hardness, brightness, honesty, wisdom, bravery.
Action - Laughter, theft, movement, judgment, hatred.
State - Childhood, boyhood, youth, slavery, sleep, sickness, death, poverty.
The names of the Arts and Science (e.g., grammar, music, chemistry, etc.) are also Abstract Nouns.
Abstract Nouns are formed:
(1) From Adjectives; as,
Kindness from kind; honesty from honest. [Most abstract nouns are formed thus.]
(2) From Verbs: as,
Obedience from obey; growth from grow.
(3) From Common Nouns; as,
Childhood from child; slavery from slave.
Another classification of nouns is whether they are “countable” or “uncountable”.
Countable nouns (or countables) are the names of objects, people, etc. that we can count,
e.g., book, pen, apple, boy, sister, doctor, horse.
Uncountable nouns (or uncountables) are the names of things which we cannot count,
e.g., milk, oil, sugar, gold, honesty. They mainly denote substances and abstract things.