Count Nouns

By now, we have come across multiple types of nouns and pronouns in our everyday language. You might also vaguely remember a lesson about count nouns from your High school English class. All these types of nouns are very common in our daily life and we speak and write about them without realizing what they are categorized as.

Today, in this article, we will discuss about the count nouns and how they are used in English language. Also, we will discuss the real difference between a regular noun and a count noun.

Count Noun

A count noun is a noun i.e. a name, place or thing that is countable. In simpler words, a noun which can be counted in terms of numbers is referred to as a count noun. Any noun that can exist in plural form is called a count noun.

Quite simple don’t you think?

Example:

He gathered all his books and put them in a box.

Consider the above sentence. How many nouns can you find in this sentence and how many of them are count nouns?

The above sentence has two nouns books and box. As you can count the number of books and the number of boxes so they are both count nouns.

Now consider this example

Sara watered the three plants in her window.

In this example, the noun plants has a number before it which is another characteristic of a count noun. Any noun which can be preceded in a sentence by a number to show its plural form is a count noun. Thus plants is a count noun in this example.

Non-Count Noun

Are all the nouns count nouns?

No! There are the opposites of count nouns; the nouns which are uncountable or that cannot be counted in terms of numbers. Likewise, a noun which cannot be preceded by a number is a non-count noun.

Example

The music played loudly.

Consider the above example and you will see that the sentence has only one noun i.e. music. Now the question is, can you count music? The obvious answer is no. The music cannot be counted in term of numbers and neither can we add a number before it to show its plural form. Three musics? Nope. Thus air is a non-count noun.

Time to test yourself.

The player was angry at the weather.

The above example sentence has three nouns. Can you figure out which of them are count nouns and which are non-count nouns?

Player is a count noun as it can be made plural by adding a number before it or an s afterwards. Angry and weather are non-count nouns as they cannot be made plural and cannot be counted in terms of numbers.