noun
/naʊn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms nouns nouning nouned
- noun (grammar, strictly) A word that functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as person, animal, place, word, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea: one of the basic parts of speech in many languages, including English.
- noun (grammar, now rare, loosely) Either a word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality or idea, or a word that modifies or describes a previous word or its referent; a substantive or adjective, sometimes also including other parts of speech such as numeral or pronoun.
- noun (computing) An object within a user interface to which a certain action or transformation (i.e., verb) is applied.
- verb (transitive) To convert a word to a noun.
- proper noun A department of the West Region, Cameroon.
Synonyms
name nameword substantive noun substantive naming word noun substantive
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English noun, from Anglo-Norman noun, non, nom, from Latin nōmen (“name; noun”). The grammatical sense in Latin was a semantic loan from Koine Greek ὄνομα (ónoma). Doublet of name and nomen.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A word used as the designation or appellation of a creature or thing, existing in fact or in thought; a substantive.
Etymology [OF. noun, nun, num, non, nom, F. nom, fr. L. nomen name. See Name.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “noun”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details