Concrete Noun

Concrete nouns are words used for actual things you can touch, see, taste, feel, and hear things you interact with every day.

Notice that concrete nouns can also be countable, uncountable, common, proper, and collective nouns. The easiest way to think about concrete nouns is to understand what kinds of nouns are not concrete nouns. The opposite of concrete nouns is abstract nouns, which are things that you cannot see.

One thing that is difficult to determine is the difference between concrete and abstract nouns when talking about something like an emotion. While the emotion itself, like happiness, is abstract, the things that you see when people are happy are concrete.

To give an example, think about seeing someone’s smile and hearing their laugh when they feel joy. The smile and the laugh are concrete nouns because you can experience them physically. If you put them in a science lab, for example, you can measure them.

However, the joy that person feels, how happy they are, cannot be measured. It certainly is real, and the way that the happiness is exhibited is real and instances of concrete nouns, but the emotion itself is not a concrete noun. If you put that person in a lab, you could not really measure their joy.

Examples: -

·         He plays carom. => here he could touch the carom.

·         My mother cooked meals very tasty. => here mother is a visible person.

·         The train reached Colombo at 10.30 p.m. => here Colombo is a visible place and also train

·         She eats the rotten apples. => here she tastes the apple.

·         It is nice to hear the children’s laughing. => here children’s laughing is a sound to hear.

·         The swarm of bees smelt the flowers. => here bees smelt the flowers.

·         When I passed the exam I saw my parent’s happiness. => here happiness is an abstract noun but the happiness was visible for me. So it is a concrete noun too.

·         My friend bought a new car. => here car is a visible thing.

·         I lost my bike key. => here key is a touchable thing.

·         Rome is a capital of Italy. => here Rome is a place for visible.

Exercise-xxvii

State the concrete nouns in the brackets. The first one is done for you.

1.    My father is an engineer. (father)

2.    She watched cinema in theater. ()

3.    I have a lot of story books. ()

4.    A birthday baby cut the cake with a lots of happiness. ()

5.    He likes ice-cream a lot. ()

6.    The engineer sketches the house plan. ()

7.    The government gives several free books for the students. ()

8.    When I see my friend happiness in his victory. ()

9.    My neighbor adopts a kitten. ()

10.  Piduruthalagala is a highest mountain in Srilanka.()

11.  A swarm of bees is saving honey in their nest. ()

Answers-xxvii

2.    theater

3.    books

4.    baby, cake

5.    ice-cream

6.    plan

7.    books, students

8.    happiness

9.    neighbor, kitten

10.  Piduruthalagala, mountain

11.  bees, honey