📄️ Nouns
Nouns are one of the four major word classes, along with verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Nouns are the largest word class.
📄️ Nouns: compound nouns
Some nouns consist of more than one word. These are compound nouns. Compound nouns can be formed in different ways. The most common way is to put two nouns together (noun + noun); other common types are adjective + noun and verb + noun.
📄️ Nouns: countable and uncountable
Countable nouns
📄️ Nouns: form
Singular and plural nouns
📄️ Nouns: forming nouns from other words
We often form nouns from other parts of speech, most commonly from a verb or an adjective. We can then use the noun phrase instead of the verb or adjective to create a more formal style. We call this nominalisation:
📄️ Nouns: singular and plural
Nouns used only in the singular
📄️ Nouns and gender
Most English nouns do not have grammatical gender. Nouns referring to people do not have separate forms for men (male form) and women (female form). However, some nouns traditionally had different forms. Nowadays, people usually prefer more neutral forms.
📄️ Nouns and prepositions
Many nouns have particular prepositions which normally follow them. Here are some common examples:
📄️ Comparison: nouns (more money, the most points)
More, less and fewer
📄️ Gender
Some languages mark words according to whether they are masculine, feminine or neuter. In English, we do not commonly mark nouns according to gender.
📄️ Piece words and group words
Piece words