Overview of Nouns

Definition

Noun - a word used as the name of a person, place or thing.

Persons, places and things are visible. However, we also give names to things that are not visible:

• FAQS – Feelings, Actions, Quality, State (these are felt only)

• UNIT – Amount, Weight, Distance, Height, Speed, Period of time

Identification of Nouns

We can identify a noun using various methods:

• By definition
• By asking questions – what, who and whom
• By formation
• By using noun finders

By definition

Noun is a naming word. If any word is telling some identity then that word will be a Noun.

By asking questions

We can identify a noun by asking any of these questions:

• What?
• Who?
• Whom?

Examples:
The captain decided the team. (Who? – captain; What? – team)
Saurabh punched Anand. (Who? – Saurabh; Whom? – Anand)
Aanya asked Meenakshi for help. (Who? – Aanya; Whom? – Meenakshi; What? – help)

Consider the following two sentences:
Djokovic went home. (Who? – Djokovic; Where? – home, so home here is an adverb and not a noun)
Andrew loves his home. (Who? – Andrew; What? – home, so home here is a noun)

By formation

We can find a noun using suffix, prefix and root words.

If these are there at the end of a word then generally that word is a noun: ment, ness, ence, sion, ism, ist, ity, tion, dom, er/or, ship, hood.

E.g. evidence, friendship, childhood

By using noun finders

Noun finders: - my/your/his/her…..

To find out whether a word is a noun or not use:
Noun finder + word (noun) - It will make a meaningful phrase if the word is a noun (in most cases).

Examples:
Death – my death, your death, etc. (meaningful phrase, so death is a noun)
Beauty – my beauty , your beauty (meaningful phrase, so beauty is a noun)
Beautiful – My beautiful, your beautiful (not a meaningful phrase, so beautiful is not a noun)