Abstract nouns 

refer to ideas and qualities that we cannot see or touch. Most abstract
nouns are formed from adjectives. For example, the abstract noun safety is formed
from the adjective safe.

Fill in the blanks with suitable abstract nouns. The adjectives, verbs or nouns given in
the brackets should offer clues.
1. He is a man of strength (strong)
2. The people in this part of the country live in poverty (poor).
3. Cruelty to animals is a punishable offence. (cruel)
4. He is on a pilgrimage to Mecca. (pilgrim)
5. I have great pleasure to welcome you. (please).
6. Childhood is the best period of one’s life. (child)
7. Waste should always be avoided. (waste).
8. As a parent my children’s safety is of utmost importance to me. (safe).
9. As the sun went below the horizon darkness enveloped the planet. (dark).
10. There is no end to his wickedness (wicked)

Identify the type of noun.

Read the following sentences and identify the common or proper nouns in them.
1. I gave my book to Riya to read.
2. The Taj Mahal in India is very beautiful.
3. Red Riding Hood met the fox in the forest.
4. Mr Tony Stark walks his dog everyday.
5. The boy ran to his mother.
6. The flat was in the middle of Lenin Street.
7. The reporter went to Noida to collect news.
8. This milk tastes sour.
9. Rose is a beautiful girl.
10. I have read the novel by Emily Bronte.
11. King Arthur was a noble king.
12. The author wrote a crime novel.
13. The captain steered the ship from hitting the iceberg.
 14. The old judge passed a unique judgement.
15. The Milky Way is a big galaxy.
16. The Indian Express is the newspaper I read regularly.
17. Sheldon Cooper is an intelligent physicist.
18. The Ganga is an important river of India.
19. J.K Rowling wrote the famous novels on Harry Potter.
20. My uncle works in the Reserve Bank of India.

Proper nouns Common nouns

Read the sentences below and underline the Concrete Nouns and circle the Abstract
Nouns.
1. I felt pain when dentist took my tooth out.
2. I fell in love with that little child.
3. After dinner, Holly went out for walk.
4. My mom will pick me time from school every Monday.
5. Puppy jumped on the table and ate cake.
6. Sarah's childhood was traumatic.
7. I have full trust on my child's nanny.
8. She is potting plants in the garden.
9. That child is very intelligent.
10. He is loyal friend.

Countable and uncountable nouns

What is a countable noun? Give example:
Countable nouns are the ones we can count. They have a plural form. Ex: star – stars;
cup – cups.
What is uncountable noun? Give example:
Countable nouns are the one we can not count. We usually need quantifiers/containers
to count them. Ex: salt; sand.
Put the words in the correct column:
orange milk apple water bread butter
cheese tea sausages juice tomato cornflakes
cottage cheese ham hot chocolate yoghurt banana
COUNTABLE NOUNS UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
- Orange - milk
- Apple - water
- Sausages - bread
- Tomato - butter
- banana - cheese
- tea
- juice
- cornflakes
- cottage
- ham
- hot chocolate
- yoghurt

Give the rules about countable and uncountable nouns:

Countable nouns are used in their singular or plural forms just adding the article a/an
before the nouns, in case of singular, or numbers before the nouns, in case of plurals.
Uncountable nouns are used in their singular form only because they don’t have a
plural form. To count them, it is necessary to add a quantifier or container before them.

When do we use some and any?

We use some and any with countable and uncountable nouns. Some is for positive
sentences, and Any is for questions and negative sentences.

Write some or any:

1. There is some cheese.
2. There aren’t any apples.
3. Is there any juice?
 4. Are there any tomatoes?
5. There are some eggs.
6. There isn’t any fruit.
7. There aren’t any rolls.
8. Is there any bread?

Plural forms of nouns

The following sentences contain one or more incorrect irregular plurals. Draw a line
through each incorrect plural and write the correct form above it.
sheep
1. My niece has a farm where she raises disease-resistant varieties of sheeps.

mice
2. Like all farmers, she has a constant problem with mouses and rats.

themselves
3. She and her husband run the farm by themselfes, so it is a lot of work for them.

wolves
4. There are coyotes and wolfs in the area, but their dogs help keep them away.

Coyotes thieves
5. The coyote in particular are like thiefs, always waiting and watching.

feet
6. If a coyote gets just a few feets inside the fence, the horses will drive it away.

Sheep children
7. Once they lost some sheeps when some childs left a gate open.

deer
8. Their valley is full of deers, which also support a large population of coyotes.

9. The river in the valley is full of salmons in the fall.

live
10. Farming is terribly hard work, but we all choose the lifes we want to live.
All of the underlined nouns in the following sentences are in the plural. Some plurals
are correctly used with countable nouns. However, many plurals are incorrectly used
with non-countable nouns.
Draw a line through each incorrectly used non-countable noun and write the
corrected form above it. If the plural is used correctly with a countable noun, write
OK above the noun.
OK fog
1. The roads were closed because of the dense fogs.
milk
2. We had to go shopping because we were out of milks again.
Disappointment OK
3. The team’s disappointments at their losses was obvious.
OK blood
4. During the operation, the patient needed six pints of bloods.
OK power
5. The recent storms have caused us to lose powers for day on end.
OK paper glass
6. Many household products are recycled, especially papers and glasses.
Paint OK
7. You need to allow a lot of time so that the paints will dry between coats.
OK OK syrup
8. Most Americans eat pancakes and waffles with syrups.
Fear OK
9. Most people seem to have an inborn fears of snakes.
OK yeast
10. Many breads in the Middle East are made without yeasts.

Give the plural forms of the words between brackets

1. When I go on holiday, my worries (worry) begin.

2. There are 24 hours (hour) in a day.

3. The accused men (man) had carefully prepared alibis (alibi).

4. A lot of people think mothers-in-law (mother-in-law) are a nuisance.

5. Milk teeth (milk tooth) aren’t permanent, but they’re important.

6. Nicotine is a poison. It can cause life-threatening diseases (disease) such as cancer.

7. Has he emailed you that list of addresses (address) yet ?

8. Peter always throws really wild parties (party).

9. The ships were unloading their cargos (cargo) on to the wharves (wharf).

10. The piano solos (piano solo) will be played by John Smith.
11. Mice (mouse) can sometimes take the cheese in a mousetrap without being

caught.
12. All stationery supplies (supply) are kept in this room.

13. Here’s a list of all the firm’s secretaries (secretary) with their departments
(department) and extension numbers (extension number).
14. What sort of social facilities (facility) do large firms (firm) provide ?
15. I always keep copies (copy) of important documents (document) that I send off.

16. The burglars (burglar) broke into the villas (villa) without attracting the attention
of passers-by (passer-by).
17. A lot of houses (house) in Barcelona have balconies (balcony).
18. The hostages (hostage) were re-united with their families (family) at last.

19. Seismographs (seismograph) register the strength of earthquakes (earthquake).

20. The news agencies (agency) launched contradictory reports (report) on the

number of casualties (casualty).

Same exercise
1. In our cafeterias (cafeteria), you can find boxes (box) with compostable forks

(fork) an knives (knife).

2. In self-service restaurants (restaurant), people collect food and drink from a

serving area and take it to a table themselves (himself/herself) after paying for it.
3. My brothers (brother) went to Spain last summer. They told me that all the girls

(girl) were wearing colourful bikinis (bikini). But they were too tired to enjoy the
summery scenes: the clatter of dishes (dish) in the hotel kitchen kept them awake
all night.
4. Before they had a microwave, Carol and her husband only had sandwiches

(sandwich) for lunch.

5. These winter tomatoes (tomato) are no good. They have been raises in

greenhouses (greenhouse).
6. This plant centre sells all kinds (kind) of ornamental grasses (grass), which can be

seen very often in modern gardens (garden).

7. Nowadays, about 35 % of all photos (photo) is taken with digital cameras

(camera).
8. Reds (red) and oranges (orange) are considered warm colours (colour), whereas

blues (blue) and purples (purple) are considered cool colours (colour).
9. Ten per cent of all men (man) are colour blind, compared with on per cent of

women (woman). Babies (baby) of three months (month) like grey, but toddlers
(toddler) prefer yellow. Red is favoured by the two-to-five year olds (two-to-five
year old).
10. The hall of the broadcasting company houses a collection of antique radios (radio).

11. There’s a car park for lorries (lorry) and coaches (coach) next to the station.
12. Kevin prefers sending memos (memo) to his colleagues rather than to talk to

them.
13. From their earliest training days (day), airline stewards and hostesses (hostess) are

told about the food requirements of particular passengers (passenger).

14. The fire in the industrial estate left two factories (factory) in ashes (ash). The

employees (employee) of several other companies (company) had to be

evacuated. The fire was started by children (child) playing with matches (match).
15. Male chauvinism lives! The 10,500 New York firemen (fireman) are fighting plans
to let women (woman) join their ranks (rank). R. Vizzini, president of the men’s
(man) union, says he recognises woman’s equal rights (right) but “women
(woman) will endanger the lives (life) of fire-fighters (fire-fighter) and the public”,
because the job is too tough for them.

Give the plural forms of the words in the following list. Consult a dictionary if necessary.
1. Fox Foxes 26. Axis Axes
2. Chief Chieves 27. Locus Loci
3. Attorney Attorneys 28. Sky Skies
4. Potato Potatoes 29. Echo Echoes
5. Spoonful Spoonful 30. Preference Preferences
6. Valley Valleys 31. Wilderness Wilderness
7. Museum Museums 32. Sleigh Sleighs
8. Genius Geniuses 33. Matrix Matrices
9. curriculum Curricula 34. Actuary Actuaries
10. hoot Hoots 35. Basis Bases
11. laboratory Laboratories 36. Analysis Analyses
12. vocabulary Vocabularies 37. Privilege Privileges
13. absence Absences 38. Freshman Freshmen
14. virus Viruses 39. parenthesis Parentheses
15. babysitter Babysitters 40. Acre Acres
16. crisis Crises 41. Oasis Oases
17. diagnosis Diagnoses 42. Embargo Embargoes
18. synopsis Synopses 43. Thesis Theses
19. athletics Athletics 44. Chassis Chasses
20. library Libraries 45. Quantum Quanta
21. Jones Joneses 46. Smith Smiths
22. quota Quotas 47. Symphony Symphonies
23. bacterium Bacteria 48. Axe Axes
24. booth Booths 49. Loaf Loaves
25. buzz Buzzes 50. Levity Levities
 G

Plural Nouns

Complete the sentences with the plural forms of the verbs in brackets:

a) Babies (baby) are cute, aren´t they?

b) In Autumn leaves (leaf) fall from trees (tree)

c) She loves puppies (puppy)

d) I have got a pair of jeans (jeans)

e) Superman and Spiderman are my heroes (hero)

f) Let´s put these toys inside these boxes (box)

Read the sentences. Rewrite them from singular to plural.

a) That watch is in his pocket.

Those watches are in his pocket.

b) This radio is on the desk.

These radios are on the desk.

c) You are my sister.

You are my sisters.

d) That isn´t a table, it is a chair.

Those aren’t tables, they are chairs.

e) The child is five.

The children are five.

f) The bus isn´t late.

The busses aren’t late.

g) That peach is delicious.

Those peaches are delicious.

Look at exercise 2 again. Make sentences a, b and c negative.

a) Those watches aren’t in his pocket.

b) These radios aren’t on the desk.

c) You aren’t my sisters.