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noun

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Pronunciation

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

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