Nouns: Types of Nouns With Examples | English Grammar | BrPaper

Nouns in English

Noun refers to the name of a person, place, animal, thing or idea. Nouns are also known as naming words.

Name of some
people	places	animals	things	ideas or feelings
girl, boy, man, woman	market, stadium, garage, bus stand	peacock, zebra, octopus, sparrow	cake, crayons, jug, shirt	courage, humble, strength, weakness

 

Types of Nouns

Singular noun	Plural noun
Naming words that show one in number are called singular nouns.	Naming words that show more than one in number are called plural nouns.
Examples: bag, basket, parrot, cat	Examples: bags, baskets, parrots, cats

Click here to attempt a Noun Quiz.

Rules for making Nouns plural

 

Nouns that end with	Plural	Example
Most nouns	Add ‘-s’	Dog  → dogs land → lands
s, ss, x, sh, ch	Add ‘-es’	bus → busses business → businesses box → boxes Bush → bushes catch → catches
z	Add an extra ‘z’ and then ‘-es’	Quiz → quizzes
f, fe	Sometimes just ‘-s’ is added Sometimes remove the f and fe and then add  ‘-ves’	Chief → chiefs roof → roofs   Leaf → leaves knife → knives
Vowel + y	Add ‘-s’	Monkey → monkeys toy → toys
Consonant + y	Remove the ‘y’ and add ‘-ies’	Duty → duties apply → applies
Vowel + o	Add ‘-s’	Radio → radios zoo → zoos
Consonant + o	Add ‘-es’	Hero → heroes tomato → tomatoes
Words from foreign languages, musical events, proper nouns	Add ‘-s’	Solo → solos piano → pianos Taco → tacos
Irregular nouns	Some are changed by changing vowels Some words are considerably changed	Tooth → teeth goose → geese   Person → people child → children

Some nouns are the same in singular and plural form:

Glasses, jeans, Sheep, fish, deer, hair, aircraft, spacecraft, news, physics.

Countable/Uncountable Noun

 

Countable Noun

Countable nouns are those which can be counted. They have singular and plural forms.

E.g. 

Boy, book, pen

Uncountable Noun

Uncountable nouns are those which cannot be counted. We use measure words to count uncountable nouns such as some, a few, lot of, etc.

‘a’ or ‘an’ is not used with uncountable nouns.

For Example:

wrong sentence	correct sentence
Can I have a tea?	Can I have some tea? Or  Can I have a cup of tea?

 

Can nouns be countable and uncountable both?

The answer is yes. 

For example:

Countable Nouns	Uncountable Nouns
They have 25 chickens on their farms. (animals)	I had chicken for dinner. (food)
There are 4 rooms in her house. (place)	There is not enough room for you. (space)
Two coffees and three juice please. (number of drinks)	Ria likes juice better than coffee. (drink)

 

Different Ways to count uncountable nouns

Mostly uncountable nouns are related to

• Liquid-juice, milk, tea
• Abstract idea or feelings- courage, advice, honesty
• Powder and grain- pulse, cereals, flour
• Natural phenomena- cold, rain, hot
• Gases- oxygen, carbon
• Subjects- chemistry, biology,
• Activities- sleep,swim

Different expressions are used to count uncountable nouns like some, much, few, a few,, little, a little, etc.

If ‘a’ is added in front of few, little it shows that the sentence is positive. E.g

• There is a little tea in the cup. 
• There is little tea in the cup. (means only leftover tea) 

To count uncountable nouns, we can also use

Bag – It is used to count flour, sugar, etc.

Bottle- It is used for a small amount of liquid

Containers	Measurement	Units
A piece of	A liter of	A piece of
A tin of	Half a kilo	A bit of
A glass of juice	Seven meter	A bar of
A bar of		A slice of
A cup of
A bottle of
A tube of

Verb agreement

Nouns and verbs are required to agree on numbers which mean if a noun is singular then the verb must also be singular and if a noun is a plural then the verb must also be plural.

For Example:

• The girl has talked to me. (singular noun- girl, singular verb- has)
• The girls have talked to me. (plural noun- girls, plural verb- have)

Singular Noun	Singular Verb	Object
The dog	chases	the cat

 

Plural Noun	Plural verb	Object
The dogs	chase	the cat

Some nouns are always plural. If we are talking about a single unit even then a plural verb is used with them. Like trousers, scissors, news

For example:

• The news is true.
• His glasses are on the table.