Noun facts for kids

A noun is a special kind of word. It's usually the name of something. Think of it as a label for a person, place, thing, animal, or even an idea. In English, nouns can be singular (meaning one) or plural (meaning more than one).

Nouns often need a small word called an article before them, like the or that. These words usually go only with nouns, not with other types of words like verbs (action words) or adverbs (words that describe actions). English has more nouns than any other type of word!

Every language in the world has nouns. But they might be used in different ways. For example, in some languages, nouns don't change for singular and plural. Also, some languages don't have a word for the.

Here are some examples of nouns: time, people, way, year, government, day, world, life, work, part, number, house, system, company, end, party, information.

What is a Noun?

The word noun comes from the Latin word nomen. This word means "name". People have been studying words like nouns for a very long time. Ancient scholars like the Sanskrit grammarian and the Greek Dionysios Thrax described them.

How Nouns Are Used

In English sentences, nouns can play different roles. They can be the subject (who or what the sentence is about). They can also be the object (who or what receives the action). Sometimes, they are a complement (a word that completes the meaning of the subject or object). Nouns often appear after prepositions, acting as the 'object of preposition'.

Nouns can also describe other nouns! For example, in "a soccer ball," 'soccer' is a noun describing 'ball'. When a noun does this, it's called a modifier.

Sometimes, verb forms can act like nouns. For example, in "I like running," 'running' is a verb form used as a noun. These are called verbals or verbal nouns. They include participles and infinitives.

Types of Nouns

Nouns are usually put into two main groups: common and proper. Pronouns (like 'he', 'she', 'it') are often seen as a separate part of speech. However, some language experts group them with nouns.

Proper Nouns: Specific Names

Proper nouns are specific names for individual things. They are like unique labels. Examples include: London, John, God, October, Mozart, Saturday, Coke, Mr. Brown, Atlantic Ocean. Proper nouns name one particular person, place, or thing. They are not general.

In English and many other languages using the Roman alphabet, proper nouns always start with a capital letter. (But remember, in German, all nouns start with a capital letter!) The word "I" is a pronoun, but it's always capitalized in English, just like a proper noun.

Sometimes, a word that is usually a common noun can become a proper noun. For example, someone might be named 'Tiger Smith'. Here, 'Tiger' is a proper noun, even though it's usually the name of an animal.

Common Nouns: General Names

Common nouns are general names. They are not specific. For example, 'city' is a common noun because there are many cities. 'London' is a proper noun because it names one specific city.

Sometimes, the same word can be either a common noun or a proper noun. It depends on how it's used:

• There can be many gods, but there is only one God (referring to the supreme being in some religions).
• There can be many internets (two or more networks connected together), but the largest internet in the world is the Internet.

Counting Nouns

In English, nouns have 'number', meaning they can be singular or plural. But some nouns are only singular'. Examples are furniture or physics. Others are only plural, like clothes or police.

Also, some nouns are countable. This means you can count them (e.g., one piece, two pieces). Other nouns are uncountable. You can't count them individually (e.g., we don't say one furniture, two furnitures).

Most nouns become plural by simply adding -(e)s.

• more than one snake = snakes
• more than one ski = skis
• more than one Barrymore = Barrymores

Even though we write -(e)s, the sound can change. It might sound like /-s/, /-z/, or /-ız/. This depends on the sound right before it. These different sounds for the plural ending are called allomorphs.

Some dictionaries list "busses" as okay for "bus," but "buses" is still preferred. "Busses" is actually the plural of "buss," which is an old word for "kiss."

Irregular Plurals

Some nouns have special, irregular plural forms. These are sometimes called mutated plurals.

• more than one child = children
• more than one woman = women
• more than one man = men
• more than one person = people
• more than one goose = geese
• more than one mouse = mice
• more than one deer = deer
• more than one ox = oxen
• more than one tooth = teeth

Many of these irregular plurals come from Old English. That language had more complicated rules for making words plural.

Finally, some nouns keep their original Latin or Greek plural forms.

• more than one nucleus = nuclei
• more than one syllabus = syllabi
• more than one focus = foci
• more than one fungus = fungi
• more than one cactus = cacti (cactuses is also acceptable)
• more than one thesis = theses
• more than one crisis = crises
• more than one phenomenon = phenomena
• more than one index = indices (indexes is also acceptable)
• more than one appendix = appendices (appendixes is also acceptable)
• more than one criterion = criteria
• more than one octopus = octopi

Showing Possession

Nouns are words for things, and things can be owned! So, nouns can change to show who owns something. In English, we usually add an apostrophe and an s to a noun to make it possessive. If the noun already ends in s, we sometimes just add an apostrophe. Look at these examples:

• This is Sam. This is Sam's cat.
• The woman's hair is long.
• There are three cats. The cats' mother is sleeping.

Adjectives Becoming Nouns

Most adjectives can become nouns by adding the suffix -ness. For example, take the adjective 'natural'. Add 'ness' to it, and you get 'naturalness', which is a noun. To see a list of 100 adjectives used in Basic English, click here.

Noun Phrases and Word Order

A noun phrase is a group of words where the main word is a noun. In English, there's a usual order for words in most noun phrases. Determiners (like 'the', 'a'), adjectives, and nouns that describe other nouns usually come before the main noun. Relative clauses (phrases that give more information about the noun) usually come after the main noun.

Images for kids

• 

  A friendly robot, showing how words can be named.

See also

In Spanish: Sustantivo para niños