Most Common Nouns in English in Alphabetical Order with Example Sentences - Numbers 1 - 50

ge	The age of my daughter is three.
air	The air is quite clear today.
anger	His anger knows no limits.
animal	I'm not sure of the name of that animal over there in that cage.
answer	He provided an excellent answer to my question.
apple	I love a good red apple after dinner.
area	This area is intended for recreation
arm	He put his arm out for inspection.
art	It would be difficult to live without art.
atom	One of the smallest elements is the atom.
baby	She put her baby into its crib.
back	I turned my back on that outrageous man.
ball	He hit the ball out of the park.
band	The band played until three in the morning.
bank	The bank closes at three in the afternoon.
bar	Let's go to the bar and get a beer.
base	He works at the base on the otherside of town.
bat	If you look up there you can see a bat flying between the trees.
bear	The bear is a dangerous but playful animal.
beauty	The countryside is splendid in its beauty.
bell	He rang the bell to signal the end of class.
bird	Do you know the name of that bird on that branch?
bit	Could you hand me that bit for this drill?
block	He picked up the block of wood and began to work on it.
blood	Look at the blood on the floor! What's happened?
blow	He received a mighty blow from his opponent in the boxing match.
board	Use that board over there to cover up the window.
boat	He bought a new boat for his birthday.
body	He left the body at the side of the road.
bone	I found a prehistoric bone in the desert.
book	You should read this book!
bottom	You will find the coin at the bottom of the lake.
box	I put the extra clothes into that box.
boy	Do you see that boy over there?
branch	There is a bird on that branch.
bread	Could you get some bread when you go to the supermarket?
break	I'll take a five minute break and then get back to work.
brother	My brother lives in Seattle.
call	Give me a call when you arrive.
camp	I set up camp at the edge of the wood.
capital	The capital of Washington state is Olympia.
captain	The captain told his crew to raise the sail.
car	He drove his car very fast.

NOUNS

NOUNS

KINDS OF NOUNS:

•          Common Nouns – are names of people (e.g. man), things (e.g. books), animals (e.g. monkey) and places (church).

•         Proper Nouns – are special names of people (e.g. George Bush), things (e.g. Financial Times), animals (e.g. King Kong) and places (e.g. Paris). A proper noun begins with a Capital Letter.

•          Abstract Nouns – An abstract noun is the name of something that we can only think of or feel but cannot see (e.g. friendship).

•         Collective Nouns – are names used for a number of people,

things or animals together and treated as one. For example: a group of friends, a bunch of bananas, a litter of puppies.     

•         Countable and Uncountable Nouns – Countable nouns are nouns which can be counted (e.g. trees). Uncountable nouns are nouns which cannot be counted. (e.g. smoke).

 

Countable and Uncountable Nouns are used with the following:

Countable Noun	Uncountable Noun
a, an, a few, several, many,	a little, much, some, plenty of,
some, plenty of, a lot of,	a lot of, a large amount of,
a large number of	a great deal of

Nouns have four genders:

1.         Masculine Gender – The masculine gender is used for all males. Example: boy, man

2.         Feminine Gender – The feminine gender is used for all females. Example: girl, woman

3.         Common Gender – The common gender is used where the noun can be both male and female. Example: cousin, friend, person, child, student

4.         Neuter Gender – The neuter gender is used for things which have no life or sex. Example: table, chair.

 

Singular and Plural Nouns – A noun that shows only one person (e.g. a girl), thing (e.g. pencil), animal (e.g. tiger) or place (e.g. market) is called a singular noun).

A noun that shows more than one person (e.g. girls), thing (e.g. pencils), animal (e.g. tigers) or place (e.g. markets) is called a plural noun.

How plural nouns are formed.

By adding –s.

By adding ‘es’ to nouns ending in –ch, –s, –sh and –x.

beach	beaches	peach	peaches
branch	branches	speech	speeches
ditch	ditches	watch	watches

 

boss	bosses	glass	glasses
bus	buses	lens	lenses
chorus	choruses	pass	passes

 

brush	brushes	fish	fishes
bush	bushes	lash	lashes
dish	dishes	wish	wishes

 

box	boxes	hoax	hoaxes
fax	faxes	six	sixes
fox	foxes	tax	taxes

 

By adding ‘es’ to nouns ending in –o.

buffalo	buffaloes	potato	potatoes
cargo	cargoes	mosquito	mosquitoes
echo	echoes	tomato	tomatoes

 

By adding ‘s’ to nouns ending in –o.

banjo	banjos	patio	patios
bamboo	bamboos	photo	photos
radio	radios	video	videos

 

By replacing ‘y’ with –ies.

baby	babies	lorry	lorries
fly	flies	navy	navies
hobby	hobbies	puppy	puppies

 

By adding ‘s’ to nouns ending in –y.

boy	boys	key	keys
day	days	toy	toys
donkey	donkeys	turkey	turkeys

 

By replaying ‘f’ or ‘fe’ with –ves.

calf	calves	loaf	loaves
half	halves	self	selves
life	lives	wife	wives

  

By adding ‘s’ to nouns ending in –f or –fe.

chief	chiefs	hoof	hoofs
dwarf	dwarfs	reef	reef
gulf	gulfs	roof	roofs

 

By changing vowels.      

foot	feet	louse	lice
goose	geese	tooth	teeth
mouse	mice	woman	women

Some nouns have same words for plural and singular.

aircraft	aircraft	music	music
crossroads	crossroads	series	series
furniture	furniture	sheep	sheep

 

Exceptional plural.

child	children	ox	oxen
crisis	crises	passer-by	passers-by
mouse	mice	radius	radii

 

FORMING NOUNS

Nouns can be formed from nouns, verbs and adjectives. They are formed by adding certain letters to them.

Nouns	Nouns
widow	widowhood
friend	friendship
king	kingdom

 

Verbs	Nouns
add	addition
fail	failure
give	gift

 

Adjectives	Nouns
clean	cleanliness
sad	sadness
beautiful	beauty

Types of Nouns

We have different types of nouns in English.
They are:

• Common nouns and Proper nouns
• Countable nouns and Uncountable (or Mass) nouns
• Collective nouns
• Concrete nouns and Abstract nouns
• Compound nouns
• Predicate nouns

When we talk or write, we talk or write about someone or something. If so, then we need to give a name to that someone or something. We cannot avoid names. So we cannot avoid nouns.
In real life we use different kinds of names. In grammar, different types of nouns represent different kinds of names.

What Do We Mean by Different Kinds of Names in Real Life?

It appears to be easy to understand this, but it is not immediately clear to many people what grammar means by different kinds of names.
If you were Albert Einstein. People would call you different things: Albert, Mr. Einstein, or even Al. Your close friends might even call you Mr. Intelligent or Mr. Genius (either to praise you or to make fun of you). If you happened to be in my country, we would address you as Einsteinji or Einstein Sahab or even Albertji.

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All these names of Einstein (that is you) are different names. We refer to them as names, surnames or nicknames.
However, grammar does not treat names, surnames, nicknames as belonging to different types. All of them belong to one type in grammar.

What Are the Different Kinds of Names According to Grammar?

Let's take an example.
Suppose a man comes to meet me at home while I am in my study. My wife receives him at the door and reports to me, "A man has come to see you." She refers to him as a man.
Now suppose both she and I know that he is Joseph, my student. In that case, she would tell me, "Joseph wants to meet you." She would refer to him as Joseph. These two (man and Joseph) are different names for the same person.
When my wife said man, I had a vague idea that the person waiting for me was a man and not a woman or child. The information was helpful...somewhat. When she said Joseph, I knew exactly who was waiting for me.
A difference of this kind between two names (man and Joseph) is not the same as the difference between a name, surname or nickname, as in (Albert or Mr. Einstein or Mr. Genius).
In our day-to-day conversation, it is common to say, My name is Joseph or Jane or Anil or Asha. We use these names for ourselves. None of us says: "My name is a man" or "My name is a woman".
We don't usually think of man, woman etc as names. Yet in truth they are names because we use those words to refer to people. Grammar recognizes this fact. So grammar is more true to life than life itself!

How Do We Distinguish
the Different Types of Nouns?

The answer to this question depends on the criterion we use to distinguish one noun from another.

• We say a noun is common or proper based on the generality or specificity of the name.
• Whether concrete or abstract is based on how we perceive the named thing.
• Countable and Mass nouns are based on whether the named people or places or things can be counted or not.
• Collective nouns refer to group names and not to names of individuals.
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• When we talk of compound nouns we are concerned about the morphology of the word, i.e. how the word is formed.
• When we want to discuss Predicate nouns we are busy with the syntax, i.e. the part played by the noun in the structure of the sentence.