noun

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English nowne,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman noun (“name, noun”), also nun and num,^{[5][6][7][3][8]} and Middle French non, also nun and nom,^[5][6][3] modern nom,^[5][6][8] from Latin nōmen (“name; in grammar, a noun”),^{[5][6][9][10]} from Proto-Indo-European *no-men- (“name”),^[6] a relative of name.^[10][7][2] The French word was used in grammar from the mid 12th century.^[5] The Roman scholar Varro, in the 1st century BC, used the word both for nouns as opposed to verbs and for proper nouns; later Latin grammarians used it mainly in the first sense, a class that included adjectives.^[5] The grammatical sense of the Latin word translates Ancient Greek ὄνομα (ónoma, “name, noun”).^[9][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A word naming a person, place or thing: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De Proprietatibus Rerum.^[5][7] Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Old English used nama, the ancestor of name, in the sense "noun".^[6] Older grammars divided nouns into noun substantives, such as whiteness, and noun adjectives, such as white;^[7][6][5] from about 1620 to 1669 noun alone could mean an adjective.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the name of any thing in grammar", quoting Shakespeare's Henry VI on men who "usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear".^[12]

Timeline

• before 1398 – a word naming a person, place or thing, in Trevisa.^[5][7]
• c. 1620 – an adjective (obsolete by 1669).^[5]
• 1755 – Johnson: "the name of any thing in grammar".^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (grammar) A word that names a person, animal, place, thing, quality, idea or action, and that can serve as the subject or object of a verb; the part of speech made up of such words: In "The dog barked", "dog" is a noun.^[13][3][5]

Word family

• nounally
• adnoun
• pronoun
• noun adjunct
• noun clause
• noun phrase
• agent noun

Related words

• nominal
• name
• nominate
• nomenclature
• nomen

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins