Noun

A noun is a word that means a thing, either concrete or abstract. A noun can be the subject or the object of a sentence in English. Coursebook, computer, and website are all nouns.

While it is known that children learn nouns faster than verbs and that adults "usually perform better for nouns than verbs", research published in February 2010 suggested that nouns are processed in a different part of the brain from verbs.

Compound noun
See main article compound noun.

A compound noun is a noun phrase made up of two nouns, e.g. bus driver, in which the first noun acts a sort of adjective for the second one.

Proper noun
See main article Proper noun.

A noun that is the name of a person or a place. Despite far-reaching attempts by the worlds of advertising and publishing to prove otherwise, we use capital letters at the beginning of proper nouns in English.

Gerunds
See main article gerund.

Many nouns, especially for activities, are formed by adding -ing to a verb: cooking, diving, driving, learning, meeting, running, shooting, swimming, etc.;

Science
Many (scientific) disciplines end in -ics: astrophysics; economics, geophysics; linguistics, mathematics, physics, statistics, etc.:


 * Such words are grammatically singular when they refer to the discipline: Statistics is an essential area of knowledge for psychologists (as a science);


 * When they refer to them as numbers or a quality, they are plural: These statistics are surprising (as numbers);

Two or more meanings
Don’t forget that over 80% of words in English have two or more meanings, and obviously a large number are nouns: hearing = a sense and a court session; fine – noun + verb + adjective

Many nouns correspond to the verb, often, but not always with a similar meaning:

Same/similar meaning
attack; brush, guarantee; programme; protest; regret; slice; smoke, water; etc.;

Different meaning
back; book; chair, face; ring; sign; table; trip; etc.;

Suffixes

 * There are 10 typical suffixes for nouns formed from verbs, adjectives or even other nouns:

–ness
For nouns formed from adjectives, referring to their state or quality: badness; brightness; darkness; goodness; happiness; heaviness; lightness; mildness; ripeness; rudeness; usefulness; uselessness; whiteness;

note that adjectives ending in –y change to -i – happy - happiness; ready – readiness;

–ship
championship; citizenship; friendship; marksmanship; membership; relationship;

–tion
reject – rejection; object - objection; there are many other nouns with the same ending but that are not suffixes derived from verbs: action; friction; motion; option; ration; section; station;

–sion
inclusion; adhesion; conclusion;

–ation
adapt - adaptation; associate – association; determine – determination; elevate – elevation; evaluate – evaluation; organise – organisation; recommend – recommendation; relate – relation; reserve – reservation; resign – resignation;

note: where the verb has a final e, it is suppressed in the noun;

–ment
for nouns formed from verbs: assess - assessment; govern - government; involve – involvement; manage - management; measure - measurement; move – movement; resent - resentment;

note: where the verb has a final e, it is kept in the noun: move- movement;

-ance/ence
accept – acceptance; assist - assistance; depend – dependence;

–xion/ction
Connect – connection/connexion; Inflect - inflection/inflexion

-al
approve - approval; arrive – arrival; refuse – refusal; remove - removal; revive – revival; survive – survival.