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

Parts of Speech: Noun

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

যেকোন ব্যাক্তি, প্রাণী, বস্তু, ভাব, ভাবনা, কাজ, অবস্থান, দোষ-গুণ, ইত্যাদির নামকে Noun বলে।

Examples:
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 thing.

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

Examples:
- 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)

Examples 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.

Example:
- The navy is ready for the voyage.
- Public was not aware of 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 something.
Such as iron, steel, copper, gold, coal, silver, milk, water, tea, sugar, wheat, etc.

Example:
- 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 nouns are the names of such things that 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.