Abstract Noun Examples: How to Use Abstract Nouns in Writing

An abstract noun is a person, place, or thing without a physical form, meaning that a person cannot interact with abstract nouns using their five senses: sight, scent, taste, touch, or hearing. Abstract nouns are abstract concepts, such as philosophies or emotions. For example, “happiness” is an abstract noun you identify through someone’s actions, but you cannot touch or smell “happiness.”

Abstract nouns and concrete nouns describe people, places, and things. Abstract nouns are intangible things, but you can identify concrete nouns using your five senses. Consider the following uses for these parts of speech:

• Concrete nouns: In the English language, concrete nouns are any person, place, thing that you can identify using your five senses. It can be as simple as a “chair” or “apple,” or as formal as “Secretary of State.” Any proper noun that is the name of a person or place is a concrete noun. If you can see, taste, touch, hear, or smell the physical thing, then it is a concrete noun.
• Abstract nouns: In contrast to concrete nouns, abstract nouns name things you cannot identify with your five senses. Emotions, ideologies, or concepts fall into this category. For example, religion is something people practice, but its noun form is not tangible, making it an abstract concept. Unlike concrete nouns, abstract nouns may be an adjective or verb with a suffix to create the noun form. For example, the adjective “happy” becomes the abstract noun “happiness.” Suffixes that form abstract nouns may include “-ness,” “-ity,” “-ion.”
• Concrete and abstract nouns: Some nouns can be viewed as abstract or concrete. You can determine their classification by the context. For example, art (as in “the art of painting”) would be an abstract concept, however, a specific piece of art is a concrete object and concrete noun.

There are different types of nouns, including proper nouns, common nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, and collective nouns, among others.

Abstract nouns commonly describe an emotion or a concept. In English grammar, these nouns can be subjects and objects, just like any other noun.

• Emotions: Examples of common abstract nouns describing emotions include happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger.
• Ideas or concepts: Abstract nouns can be descriptors of intangible ideas or concepts, such as freedom, love, community, government, youth, Stoicism, and Cubism. These intangible concepts, which people can experience and feel, often unite people in conversation.
• Subjects: As with other nouns, you can use an abstract noun as the subject of a sentence. For example, in the sentence “Honesty is the best policy,” the word “honesty” serves as the subject.
• Objects: For example, “The soccer team never loses faith.” In this sentence, the abstract noun “faith” is the direct object of the sentence.

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