What is a Common Noun?
What is a Common Noun: A Common Noun is usually the name of a group of people, animals, things, places, etc. These type of Nouns are only capitalized at the beginning of the (new) sentence.
Inshort, it is a group or collection which can be classified further as Proper Noun.
Here, are few examples of Common Noun which are used in many ways.
- Common Noun as a group of people: Boy, girl, man, women, students, army, workers, etc.
- Common Noun as a group of animals: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, etc. These group can be classified further into different animals.
- Common Noun as a group of things: pencils, erasers, chairs, newspapers, trees, cars, etc.
- Common Noun as a group of places: Himalayas, plateaus, ranges, rivers, etc.
All the nouns are bascically categorised into two types. Those are,
- Common Noun
- Proper Noun
Also Read: Proper Noun with example | Best English Guide for 2025
Let us understand in detail about Common Noun with more examples.
More Proper Noun Examples (with explanation)
In these examples, we are highlighting Common Noun with ‘Blue‘ colour and Proper Noun with ‘Red‘ colour.
- I would prefer to buy an iPhone than any other phones which are available in the market.
Here, the word 'iPhone' is a brand name and belongs to the category of 'phones'. - Raju is a brilliant student in our class.
Here, 'Raju' is the name of the student and belongs to the group of 'students' in a class.- Russia is the largest country in the world.
Here, 'Russia' is the name of the country and belongs to the group of countries.- I love to read ‘DC News‘ newspaper everyday morning.
Here, 'DC News'is one of the newspaper company and 'newspaper' is the common name.- I love to play sports especially Football.
Here, 'sports' is the General category and 'football'is one of the sports.Rules of Common Noun (when to use it)
1) Common Nouns are capitalized only when it is used at the beginning of the sentence.
Example Statement:
- Incorrect: ocean covers larger areas when compared to other water bodies.
- Correct: Ocean covers larger areas when compared to other water bodies.
- Incorrect: meditation helps us in balancing both physical and mental health.
- Correct: Meditation helps us in balancing both physical and mental health.
2) Common Nouns are not capitalized (lowercased) anywhere in the sentence except the beginning.
Example Statements:
- Incorrect: The United States has had 44 Presidents till now.
- Correct: The United States has had 44 presidents till now.
- Incorrect: There are 29 States in India.
- Correct: There are 29 states in India.
Also Read: Noun Definition and Examples | Best English Guide 2025
What is a Common Noun? (Summary)
- In short, Common Noun is the common name of anything like hat, shoes, school, cycle, ball, game, gas, trees, mountains, animal, bag, chair, etc.
- Anything you can use for the common noun until you do not specify anything specific which is common to that category or group.
- But remember that, if you mention anything specific (unique) of any category like sports shoes, formal shoes, etc or even company names Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc for shoes, pants like formal pants, jeans, etc. These don’t come under Common Noun.
- The common noun should be capitalised only at the beginning of the sentence, not anywhere else.
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