Abstract Nouns and Concrete Nouns with Definition and Examples

What are Abstract Nouns and Concrete Nouns?

You can probably recall that nouns are words that name people, animals, places, things, and ideas. Here, I will be defining abstract nouns and concrete nouns, provide examples and give you the information you need for using an abstract and concrete noun to write interesting sentences.

Abstract nouns are words for things that you cannot experience with any of your five senses. In other words, you cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch them. Whereas the feelings and concepts and ideas are abstract nouns.
Concrete noun refers to the name of something or someone that we experience through our senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, or taste.

Abstract nouns and concrete nouns are usually defined in terms of one another. Something that is abstract exists only in the mind, while something that is concrete can interact in a physical way. Qualities, relationships, theories, conditions, and stages of being are examples of the types of things abstract noun defines. Let us discuss each of these nouns separately.

Learn All About Nouns and Types of Nouns with Examples

Abstract Noun

A noun that denotes an abstract quality, state or action, rather than a concrete quality is called an abstract noun.These nouns have no physical shape. They can't be experienced with our five senses.
Examples: love, hate, anger, loyalty, sympathy, belief, dream, kindness, intention, knowledge, thought, culture, duration, trust, faith, leisure, etc.
These are abstract nouns, because:

They have no physical existence.
Articles cannot be used with them.
They cannot be felt with senses.

➤ Abstract nouns are formed using adjectives, verbs, and common nouns. We add suffixes to adjectives, verbs, and common nouns to form abstract nouns.

dark(adjective) + ness(noun suffix) = darkness(abstract noun)

observe(verb) + ation(noun suffix) = observation(abstract noun)

king(common noun) + ship(noun suffix) = kingship(abstract noun)

Abstract Nouns from Adjectives	Abstract Nouns from Verbs	Abstract Nouns from Common nouns
Kind -- kindness	Obey – obedience	Child – childhood
Honest – honesty	Grow – growth	Slave – slavery
Ill – illness	Punish – punishment	Mother – motherhood
Dark – darkness	Please – pleasure	King – kingship
Happy – happiness	Observe -- observation	Infant – infancy
Brave – bravery	Move -- movement	Agent – agency
Strong -- strength	Judge -- judgement	Hero -- heroism
Beauty –  beautiful	Die – death	Member – membership
Great –  greatness	Free – freedom	Neighbour -- neighbourhood
Hungry – hunger	Know -- knowledge	Leader – leadership
New -- newness	Marry -- marriage	Scholar -- scholarship
Thirsty -- thirst	Speak -- speech	Friend -- friendship

So abstract nouns are very important and very common in English. They are often, not always, formed by adding an ending to the root words. For example, the word child is a concrete noun but childhood is an abstract noun. So by adding hood on to the root word child, we get the childhood, an abstract noun.

Nouns with these endings are often abstract nouns.

-tion, -ism, -ity, -ment, -ness, -age, -ence, -ship, -al, -acy, -hood.

So if you see a word ending with one of these endings is probably an abstract noun.

➤ Abstract nouns are often formed from adjectives. The abstract noun wisdom is formed from the adjective wise.

Many a time abstract nouns are confused with adjectives. The important thing to remember here is that it is a state of mind.For example, let us take the word ''happiness''. This word is an abstract noun because it is a state of mind, but this emotion is derived from the word "happy". The word 'happy' is an adjective because it is a quality of nature. Some other examples are kindness- from kind, youth- from young. 


➤ Abstract nouns also name an action. The abstract noun discovery is a name given to the act of discovering.

➤ Most abstract nouns cannot be counted and are usually singular in number. The abstract nouns friendship and kindness cannot be counted and cannot be written in the plural.

The table below lists different types of abstract nouns.

Feelings	States	Emotions	Qualities
Anxiety	Liberty	Anger	Kindness
Fear	Grief	Joy	Honesty
Warmth	nervousness	Hate	Dedication
Pleasure	Luxury	Despair	Patience
Stress	Slavery	Sorrow	Loyalty
Satisfaction	Youth	Grief	Confidence
Confusion	Peace	Happiness	Generosity
Sympathy	Freedom	Sadness	Courage

Concepts	Moments/ Events	Ideas
Faith	Marriage	Knowledge
Energy	Birthday	Thought
Democracy	Past	Wisdom
Charity	Future	Luck
Culture	Career	Ideas
Opportunity	Life	Beliefs
Comfort	Death	dreams
Failure	childhood	justice

The following sentences contain abstract noun examples which have been underlined for easy identification. Notice that although the ideas expressed are real, they are things you can't see, touch, taste, smell, or hear.

1.  Wisdom keeps us safe.
2.  Bravery should be rewarded.
3.  Honesty is sometimes difficult but always right.
4.  What is the length of the room?
5.  A slave knows no freedom.
6.  She reported to the police about her lost bag.
7.  Childhood is a time to learn and have fun.
8.  She got her mother's permission to go to the cinema.
9.  Love is a kind of irresistible desire, it is hard to define.
10.  What is the height of the roof?

Concrete Nouns

Nouns that can be experienced with our five senses are called concrete nouns. They have physical shapes and can be touched, seen, tasted, and felt.

Examples:- table, chair, bed, can, mountain, book, eggs, fan, train, monkey, elephant, card, jug, glass, cup, bat, sparrow, dog, cat, mango, apple, etc.

A concrete noun is also a type of common noun, similar to the abstract noun. Most of the nouns used are usually concrete nouns. Consider the sentence,
Veena likes to drink milk.
Here we have two nouns Veena and milk. Both can be seen and touched. So which one of these is a concrete noun. As we know that concrete noun is a type of common noun. Veena cannot be a concrete noun as it is a proper noun. So milk is the concrete noun.

Examples:

1.  There are two rooms in my house.
2.  My friend had found my missing book.
3.  I ate two bananas and tea at the breakfast.

The table below lists some of the concrete nouns and abstract nouns.Try and understand the relationship between them.

Concrete Noun	Abstract Noun
President	Honour
Teacher	Dedication
Cat	Lazy
Police	Trust
Music	Relaxation

Summary

➤ A noun which we cannot perceive with our senses is called an abstract noun.
➤ A noun which we can perceive with our senses is called a concrete noun.

Example:

He received a  badge for his bravery.

The words badge and bravery are nouns. The noun badge is a thing that we can see or touch whereas the noun bravery is a quality that we cannot see or touch. Here the noun badge is a concrete noun and the noun bravery is an abstract noun.

I hope this explanation will help you to understand better the difference between abstract and concrete nouns.

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