• What are individual nouns?
• Examples of individual nouns
• Sentences with individual nouns
• Individual and collective nouns
• Other types of nouns

We explain what individual nouns, examples and sentences that use them are. Also, what are collective nouns.

Individual nouns refer to something countable.

What are individual nouns?

The nouns They are those words with which we name both objects and actions, which is why they are also known as "names." What they designate can belong to the real or to the imaginary. On the other hand, there may be different types of nouns, depending on the particular characteristics of what they name.

Among them, individual nouns are those whose referent is always an object or countable being, although belonging to a set higher. They differ in this from collective nouns, whose referents always imply a number or group of things.

Individual nouns, however, almost always admit some form of derivation that allows them to become plural, thus designating more than one object as a referent. However, this does not mean that they become collective nouns, since they continue to have countable, individualizable references.

For example, we can speak of "bill" or "coin" (one and one), and just adding the morpheme -s we have "bills" or "coins" (two, three, ten, that is, countable), and it is still an individual noun; but if we speak of money (not countable), we refer to a set of capitals, expressible in an indeterminate number of notes or coins, and therefore a collective noun.

Examples of individual nouns

Examples of individual nouns are the following:

• Dog
• Shoe
• Stone
• Planet
• Woman
• Sun
• Insect
• Notebook
• Book
• Foot
• Dish
• Bottle
• Molecule
• Finger
• Disk
• satelite
• Statue
• Plaza
• Country
• Town
• Balloon
• Chicken
• Toad
• Plant
• Chair
• government
• Number
• Secret
• Battery
• Windmill
• Frame
• Soldier

Sentences with individual nouns

Countable nouns can be plural, like "soldiers."

Here are some prayers with individual nouns:

• The painter picked up the brush and stopped in front of the painting he was trying to finish.
• Insects are the most numerous animals on the planet.
• On the coast of my country there are several large mills.
• They say that men are from Mars and women are Venus.
• Write down that good phrase from the movie in your notebook.

Individual and collective nouns

As we said before, individual and collective nouns are distinguished in the nature of their referents. The former are countable and individualizable, but collective nouns always designate a set.

For example, when we talk about studentsWe mean two, three or four students; but when we say student body, we refer to all the students, without stopping to see how many there are. The first is an individual noun, the second a collective one.

Other types of nouns

Nouns can also be classified as abstract ("childhood") or concrete ("girl").

In addition to concrete nouns (and abstract ones, which we also saw), we can talk about other types of noun, such as:

• Concrete nouns. Those that refer to references that we can perceive through our senses, that is, material, tangible, concrete. For example: stone, woman, river.
• Abstract nouns. On the contrary, they refer to references that exist only in the world of ideas, and that are therefore immaterial, abstract. For example: Liberty, truth, love.