Concrete Noun

Would you like to know the difference between concrete nouns and abstract nouns? Concrete nouns are things that you can experience through your five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. On the other hand, abstract nouns refer to ideas and concepts.

General Types of Nouns

Before we look at concrete nouns, let’s see what a noun is and the different types of nouns.

Two broad categories of nouns would be the common and proper nouns:

• Proper nouns are capitalized, as they refer to one person, place, thing, or idea in particular. They can be names of people, movies, books, places, months, days, organizations, buildings, etc. Examples are: Jane, Star Wars, Pride and Prejudice, Yellowstone Park, March, Friday, Girl Scouts, and the Statue of Liberty.
• Common nouns are everything else, like stream, air, boys, whale, and love.       

Two other groups that you can sort nouns into are countable and uncountable:

• If it can have a number in front of it, it is a countable noun, like cat, mile, jar, house, sack, cup, or moon.
• Uncountable nouns are sometimes referred to as mass nouns, because they have mass but you can’t count them. Some examples are: air, milk, rice, butter, oil, gas, furniture, luggage, happiness, coffee, and money.   

Collective nouns refer to a group of objects. They are like a collection or a unit.

You can have more than one unit, so they may appear as singular or plural. For example: one family or two families, or one school or two schools.

Other collective nouns are: faculty, team, troupe, gaggle, herd, swarm, coven, and senate.  

Defining a Concrete Noun

You experience concrete nouns through your five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. If you cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell something, it is not a concrete noun.  

Concrete nouns can be:

• Common nouns
• Proper nouns
• Countable and uncountable nouns
• Collective nouns

Concrete nouns can appear in singular or plural forms. Examples are:

flower, bear, music, Niagara Falls, pie, incense, tornado, ranch, milk, team, Declaration of Independence, lotion, stars, Europeans, water, Big Ben, colony, and car

Abstract Nouns

Abstract nouns are like the opposite of concrete nouns. These are nouns that name things you cannot see, smell, taste, hear, or touch. They refer to emotions, ideas, concepts, tenets, beliefs, or your state of being.

Examples include:

love, hate, bigotry, acceptance, tyranny, democracy, freedom, power, happiness, curiosity, peace, maturity, deceit, trust, integrity, culture, patience, rage, calm, anticipation, education, stupidity, safety, evil, progress, shopping, and virtue

Quiz on Types of Nouns

Take this quiz to see it you understand the different types of nouns.

A. Directions: Underline the collective nouns in the following paragraph. There are six.

My family went to the zoo on Monday. We saw a mob of people waiting to see a pride of lions. At noon, a marching band appeared on Main Street. Lunch was unpleasant because there was a swarm of flying insects around us. After that, we saw a tribe of baboons and some crazy monkeys.

Answers: Myfamilywent to the zoo on Monday.  We saw amobof people waiting to see aprideof lions. At noon, a marchingbandled a parade on the main street. Lunch was unpleasant because there was aswarmof flying insects around us. After that, we saw atribeof baboons and some crazy monkeys. 

B. Directions: Decide whether the underlined noun in the sentences is countable or uncountable.  Put a C for countable and a U for uncountable. 

1. ___ The cake needs moresugar.
2. ___ I own 10cars.
3. ___ Look at all thosegeese.
4. ___ I see aherdof bison.
5. ___ Did you make theteam?

Answers:

1. _U_ The cake needs more sugar.
2. _C_ I own 10 cars.
3. _C_ Look at all those geese.
4. _U_ I see a herd of bison.
5. _U_ Did you make the team?

C. Directions: Put a C for concrete and an A for abstract

1. ___ cobbler
2. ___ sadness
3. ___ liberty
4. ___ butter
5. ___ intelligence

Answers:

1. _C_ cobbler
2. _A_ sadness
3. _A_ liberty
4. _C_ butter
5. _A_ intelligence