What are Concrete Nouns

Nouns are the words that name people, things and places. In this article, we are going to look at concrete nouns which is a major category of nouns. First let us look at the definition of concrete nouns and then move on to discuss what concrete nouns are.

All nouns can be categorized into the two groups: Abstract and Concrete Nouns. All nouns that can be perceived through your senses fall into the category of concrete nouns. This means that concrete nouns are the things that you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

For example, let us look at the noun ocean. You can see the ocean – the white waves, blue water, and the sandy beach. You hear the sound of waves, feel the smell of the ocean, taste the saltiness, and even touch the water.

It is important to note that an abstract noun can be any noun that can be experienced with at least one of your senses. It is not necessary for a thing to be perceived through all five senses to be termed as a concrete noun.

Look at the sentences below and try to identify the concrete nouns in them.

The group of students entered the classroom.

Jean’s adorable puppy, Rover licked the ice cream off her chin.

Despite firefighters’ attempt to control the fire, the fire has already spread to the other parts of the building.

My family went to Paris last year, but Harry, my elder brother stayed home.

He passed me a glass of water when I asked him to pass the salt.

As observed from the above examples, abstract nouns can refer to people, places, and objects. Abstract nouns can fall into the category of

Common Nouns: Common noun refers to the class of person, place or thing.

Ex: city, film, man, shopkeeper, bird, restaurant, teacher, pencil, phone, book, mother

Proper Nouns: Proper noun refers to the name of person, place or thing.

Ex: Delhi, Edward, UN, Rover, Nile, Eiffel Tower, Jennet, Volvo, Mrs. Weasly, Australia

The opposite of concrete nouns is abstract nouns. They refer to ideas and concepts, things that cannot be perceived through your five senses. Abstract nouns are often considered as uncountable nouns and are written in singular form. On the contrary, concrete nouns can either countable or uncountable. They can also appear either in the singular form or plural form.

Ex: children, sugar, water, bear, mother, Big Ben, London, erasers, stars, Indians

Concrete nouns are found all around us. Look at the image below and try to identify as many concrete nouns as you can find. You’ll note that all the objects in this image fall into the category of concrete nouns.