Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns are types of nouns which can be experienced through our five senses: smell, sight, taste, hearing, and touch. They’re things. Concrete nouns can be (depending on the appropriate context, naturally) smelled, seen, heard, felt, or tasted.
Examples of Concrete Nouns:
|
Dog |
Mother’s Day |
Farm |
|
Music |
Stars |
Europe |
|
Washington D.C |
Doll |
Tornado |
Concrete nouns break down into different categories. They can be proper, common, countable, non-countable, and collective. They can be in singular or plural forms.
Proper Concrete Nouns
Doll – A doll is a good gift for your daughter.
Chair – Two chairs were placed on the platform.
Table – A table is all you need to study!
Common Concrete Nouns
Street – The streets were filled with flowers.
Mall – The three malls all sales last Saturday.
Holiday – A holiday is coming soon!
Countable Concrete Nouns
Book – The four books were all in a row on the shelves.
Horse – Ten horses escaped!
Car – A car was parked in the garage.
Non-countable Concrete Nouns
Milk – He drank a glass of milk before bedtime.
Sugar – You need to add more sugar to the recipe.
Water – We drank three bottles of water at the parade.
For non-countable concrete nouns, words must be added to explain the amount. These nouns do not have a plural form in everyday usage (poetry and hard sciences, arguably, notwithstanding). They cannot be separated as individual elements.
Indeed, identifying concrete nouns is quite easy. As long as a noun is identifiable using one of our five senses, it is a concrete noun.
Examples:
-
Could you please run and answer the phone?
-
In this sentence, the word ‘phone’ is a concrete noun. A phone can be seen.
-
That noise is extremely annoying.
-
Yes, ‘noise’ cannot be seen, but it can be heard. Thus, it can be a concrete noun.
-
After they divorced, Mr. Smith pursued his dream of travelling to different countries.
-
In this sentence, ‘countries’ is a concrete noun. Countries can be seen. “Countries” is a concrete noun.
-
Happiness is an elusive thing.
-
True, ‘Happiness’ cannot be seen, heard or touched, but it certainly can be felt.
-
Mr. Jones enjoys jogging through town every day.
-
Mr. Jones is a person. Thus, he can be seen by the human eye. The noun is a concrete noun.