What are nouns? A noun is a part of speech, and parts of speech simply refer to types of words. You may be familiar with a lot of basic parts of speech, like nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Nouns identify people, places, things, and ideas.

Nouns can be categorized as either common or proper. Common nouns name general people, places, things, and ideas, while proper nouns name specific people, places, things, and ideas. For example, examples of nouns naming people would be: Note that typically, the first letter in a common noun isn't capitalized unless that common noun is the first word in a sentence. The first letter in a proper noun is typically capitalized.

Function in a sentence Nouns have certain functions (jobs) in a sentence, for example: subject of verb: Doctors work hard. object of verb: He likes coffee. subject and object of verb: Teachers teach students. But the subject or object of a sentence is not always a noun. It could be a pronoun or a phrase. In the sentence "My doctor works hard", the noun is "doctor" but the subject is "My doctor".

TYPES OF NOUNS

PLURAL NOUNS Most English nouns can be made plural simply by adding an "s" to them, but there are a few exceptions. Nouns whose singular forms end in s, z, x, ch or sh need es to become plural (boss-bosses, box-boxes, watch-watches, bush- bushes). Certain nouns that end in o also need es to become plural (potato- potatoes, hero-heroes, volcano-volcanoes). For nouns that end in f or fe, change the “f” to a “v,” and add es (knife-knives, wolf-wolves). If a singular noun ends in a single consonant followed by y, change the “y” to “i,” and add es (lady-ladies, spy-spies).