A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first words which small children learn. The highlighted words in the following sentences are all nouns:
- Late last year our neighbours bought a goat.
- Portia White was an opera singer.
- The bus inspector looked at all the passengers' passes.
- According to Plutarch, the library at Alexandria was destroyed in 48 B.C.
- Philosophy is of little comfort to the starving.
A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, anindirect object, a subject complement, an object complement, anappositive, an adjective or an adverb.
