Nouns are naming words. Everything we see or talk about is a noun. If you remember your school days, then you should be able to recall the definition of nouns that were taught to us: nouns are the names of persons, places, animals, things, or qualities.

Let’s take a few examples for each of these:
Persons, places, animals: Tom, India, Cat
Objects and substances: chair, water, table
Qualities: beauty, kindness, arrogance
Actions (as nouns): cooking, dancing, sleeping

Types of Nouns:

1. Common and Proper Nouns:
I. A common noun is the word used for a class of person, place, or thing.
Example: car, man, city, iron, liquid, company, etc.
II. A proper noun is the name of a particular or specific person, place, or thing. A proper noun always starts with a capital letter.
Example: Alfred, Asia, Brazil

2. Countable and Non-countable Nouns:
I. A countable noun (or count noun) is a noun with both a singular and a plural form, and it names anything (or anyone) that you can count.
Example: John painted the table red and the chairs blue.
II. A non-countable noun (or mass noun) is a noun that does not have a plural form and that refers to something that you could (or would) not usually count.
Example: Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen.

3. Collective Nouns:
A collective noun is a noun naming a group of things, animals, or persons. You could count the individual members of the group, but you usually think of the group as one unit.
Example: The jury is dining on take-out chicken tonight.

Abstract nouns are used to describe emotions, qualities or feelings.
Examples: Honesty, goodness, kindness, etc.

5. Possessive Nouns:
When we want to show that something belongs to somebody or something, we usually add (‘s) to a singular noun and an apostrophe to a plural noun.
Example: The boy’s ball.

Sometimes we use a noun to describe another noun. In that case, the first noun acts as an adjective.
Example: Racehorse.