Abstract and Concrete Nouns for intermediate learners

abstract nouns articles concrete nouns proper nouns

Based on what we can or cannot perceive with our five senses, we can categorize nouns into two groups: abstract and common nouns. Start learning!

advanced

"Abstract and Concrete" Nouns in English Grammar

What Are Abstract and Concrete Nouns?

Abstract nouns refer to nouns that exist only as an idea or quality, not something real that you can see or touch.
Concrete nouns refer to physical things, animals, or people that you are able to hear, see, smell, touch, or taste.

Examples of Abstract and Concrete Nouns

In the table below, you can see some of the common abstract and concrete nouns in English:

Abstract nouns	Concrete nouns
Beauty	Book
Freedom	Child
Sadness	Dog
Stupidity	Ball
Anger	Ice cream cone

Abstract Nouns Categorization

We can categorize abstract nouns into different categories:

Emotions: anger, joy, passion
States: being, peace, freedom
Feelings: fear, stress, love
Qualities: beauty, honesty, trust
Concepts: culture, faith, chance
Ideas: democracy, wisdom, religion
Events: birthday, marriage, death

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

It's important to know if a noun is countable or uncountable. This is going to help us to use the correct article. Let's learn more.

Collective Nouns

If we want to represent certain individual nouns as one entity we can make use of collective nouns. In this lesson, you'll learn about their structure and uses.

Possessive Nouns

Possessive structures have many functions like showing ownership or belonging. With the help of apostrophe 's', we can make a possessive noun. Let's start!

Noun Modifiers

As you might guess, noun modifiers can modify nouns. What if there is a noun phrase after noun modifiers? If these questions are stuck in your mind, read more!

Verbal Nouns

Sometimes we can change a verb and make it into a noun. One of the most common ways of doing this is adding the suffix -ing. Let's see what verbal nouns are!

Gerund Phrases

Grund phrases are phrases that have 'gerunds,' 'its object,' and any 'modifiers' or 'complements.' In this lesson, we will learn all about them.

download langeek app for free

Langeek