Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The part of speech that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action and can function as the subject or object of a verb, the object of a preposition, or an appositive.
- noun Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as neighbor, window, happiness, or negotiation.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In grammar, a name; a word that denotes a thing, material or immaterial; a part of speech that admits of being used as subject or object of a verb, or of being governed by a preposition.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Gram.) A word used as the designation or appellation of a creature or thing, existing in fact or in thought; a substantive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun grammar A
word that can be used to refer to aperson ,animal ,place ,thing ,phenomenon ,substance ,quality , oridea ; one of the basic parts ofspeech in many languages, includingEnglish . - verb transitive To convert a word to a noun.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a content word that can be used to refer to a person, place, thing, quality, or action
- noun the word class that can serve as the subject or object of a verb, the object of a preposition, or in apposition
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word noun.
Examples
-
Surely, in this instance, the plural noun "freshes" is not formed from any such singular noun as "_fresh_," but directly from the adjective, which latter does not seem to have been ever used as a singular _noun_.
-
A noun signifying many, is called a _collective noun_, or _noun of multitude_; as, the _people_, the _army_.
English Grammar in Familiar Lectures Samuel Kirkham
-
Find them, and give the reason.] [Footnote 2: When a noun is modified by both a genitive and an adjective, a favorite order of words is _adjective, genitive, noun_.] [Footnote 3: A modifying genitive often stands between a preposition and its object.] *****
Latin for Beginners Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge 1900
-
Is the adjective skeevy somehow related to the slang noun for underwear, skivvies?
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004
-
Is the adjective skeevy somehow related to the slang noun for underwear, skivvies?
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004
-
That quality of crawling stealthily is the basis of the slang noun creep.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
-
That quality of crawling stealthily is the basis of the slang noun creep.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
-
That quality of crawling stealthily is the basis of the slang noun creep.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
-
That quality of crawling stealthily is the basis of the slang noun creep.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
-
Shvitz as a noun is a steambath, as Mr. el-Gamal said.
milosrdenstvi commented on the word noun
"...rather than any good action should walk through the world like an unappropriated adjective in an ill-arranged sentence, he is always willing to stand noun substantive to it himself."
-- Walter Scott, "Rob Roy"
July 8, 2011