"I was reading the dictionary. I thought
it was a poem about everything."
                     --Steven Wright

Parts of Speech: Noun

Name of anything like person, animal, place, thing, abstract, idea, action, state or quality is called Noun.

Maria, Girl, Dhaka, Book, Teacher, Water, Honesty, Happiness, Family, Sleep, Death etc.
In Sentence: (Bold words are noun)
- A boy is coming towards us.
- Sarah is a pretty girl.
- The sun shines in daytime.
- Education removes darkness.
- Poverty is curse.

Function of Noun:
Noun plays the role in a sentence as subject of a verb or object of a verb or both subject and object of a verb.

Classification of nouns:
Noun can be classified into five categories:

  1. Proper noun
  2. Common noun
  3. Collective noun
  4. Abstract noun
  5. Material noun

i. Proper Noun:

Proper noun is the name of some particular person, place or things.

Example: - Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh. ( Dhaka is the name of one particular capital)
- Sunny is a smart boy. ( Sunny is the name of one particular boy)
- Rimi is a clever girl. (Rimi is the name of one particular girl)

Proper noun always starts with capital letter.

ii. Common Noun:

Common noun is a noun that is not the name of a particular thing or class but that represents one or all of the members of that class or thing.

A common noun can be preceded by the definite articles (a, the).

- Sunny is a smart boy. (Here boy is common noun while Sunny is a proper noun)
- Rimi is a clever girl. (Here girl is common noun while Rimi is a proper noun)

Example without sentence:
- People: boy, girl, mother, father, baby, child, teacher, student, man, woman etc.
- Things: book, table, computer, pen, pencil etc.
- Animals: bird, dog, cat, cow, goat, wolf, tiger etc.
- Place: city, country, state, capital, beach, forest etc.

iii. Collective Noun:

A collective noun is the name of a collection or number or group of things or persons taken together and considered of as one whole.

- The navy is the ready for the voyage.
- Public was not aware for the incident.
- The proposal was approved by the cabinet.

Example without sentence:
Crowd, class, army, mob, gang, team, jury, family, herd, committee, audience, council, public, navy, cabinet, group, company, society, troupe, corporation, senate, faculty, board etc.

iv. Material Noun:

A material noun is the name of material, substance or ingredient of things.
Such as iron, steel, copper, gold, coal, silver, milk, water, tea, sugar, wheat etc.

- The necklace is made of gold.
- The cow gives us milk.
- Give me a cup of tea.

v. Abstract Noun:

An Abstract Noun is usually the name of a quality, action, state or concept.
Abstract noun are the names of such things those can’t be touched, tested, smelt or heard.
Such as:
Quality- honesty, beauty, bravery, wisdom, heroism, stupidity, darkness, kindness, goodness, brightness etc.
Action- Judgment, movement, laughter, hatred, theft etc.
State- Childhood, boyhood, youth, death, poverty, slavery, sickness, sleep etc.

The names of Arts and Science such as grammar, chemistry, physics, music etc. are also abstract noun.