Which of the following is abstract now?

Video transcript

- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. So today I'd like to talk to you about the idea of concrete and abstract nouns, and before we do that, I'd like to get into some word origins or etymology. So let's take each of these words in turn, because I think by digging into what these words mean, literally what they mean and where they come from, we'll get a better understanding of this concept. So both of these words come to us from Latin. Concrete comes to us from the Latin concretus, which means to grow together. So this part of it means grown. And this part means together. It refers to something that, you know, has grown together and become thick and kind of hard to get through and physical. The connotation here is that this is a physical thing. Something that is concrete is physical. Abstract, on the other hand, means to draw something away. So something that is abstract is drawn away from the real, from the concrete, from the physical. So this is not physical. And we make this distinction in English when we're talking about nouns. Is it something that is concrete, is it something you can look at or pick up or smell or sense or something that is abstract, something that isn't physical, but can still be talked about. So for example, the word sadness... Is a noun, right? This is definitely a noun. It's got this noun-making ending, this noun-forming suffix, ness. You know, we take the adjective sad and we toss this ness part onto it, we've got a noun. But can you see sadness? Is it something you can pick up? Sure, you can tell by being, you know observant and empathetic that your friend is sad, but it's not something you can pick up. You can't be like a measurable degree of sad. You couldn't take someone's sadness, put it under a microscope and say "Oh, Roberta, you are 32 degrees microsad." You know, it's not something physical. Concrete things, on the other hand, are things that we can see or count or measure. Just parts of the physical world. So anything you look at, like a dog is concrete, a ball is concrete, a cliff is concrete. Happiness... Is abstract. The idea of freedom... Is abstract. Though the presence of freedom in your life may manifest in physical objects, like "Oh, my parents let me have the freedom to eat ice cream." Ice cream is, you know, a concrete noun. But freedom, the thing that allows you, you know, the permission that you get from your parents to have ice cream. That's not a physical object. So that's basically the difference. So a concrete noun is a physical object and an abstract noun is not. This is why I really wanted to hit the idea that a noun can be a person, place, thing or idea, because nouns can be ideas, and those ideas tend to be abstract. Sadness, happiness, freedom, permission, liberty, injustice. All of these are abstract ideas. That's the difference. You can learn anything. David out.

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What Are Abstract Nouns? (with Examples)

An abstract noun is a noun that refers to an intangible concept such as an emotion, a feeling, a quality, or an idea. In other words, an abstract noun does not refer to a physical object.

It is sometimes helpful to think of an abstract noun as a word that names something that you cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste (i.e., something you cannot perceive with one of your five senses). For example:

• consideration, parenthood, belief, anger

More Examples of Abstract Nouns

Here are some more examples of abstract nouns categorized under conceptual headings:

Abstract Nouns Contrast with Concrete Nouns

Abstract nouns contrast with concrete noun, which denote tangible things, i.e., things that can be perceived with one of the five senses. Here is a table with some abstract and concrete nouns:

Abstract or Concrete? It Could Be Ambiguous.

It is not always easy to differentiate between an abstract noun and a concrete noun, and it is not unusual for students to argue over whether a noun is abstract or concrete. For example, "laughter" is often cited as an abstract noun, but "laughter" can be heard, which would make it a concrete noun.

We would agree that "laughter" is a concrete noun, but what about "love," "work," and "result"? It is fairly easy to make cases for these being concrete nouns, but they are classified as abstract nouns. Be aware that the distinction between abstract noun and concrete noun is sometimes blurry.

Also, be aware that classifying a noun as abstract or concrete may depend on context or even the classifier's definition of perceivable. Look at these two examples:

• Working for Disney was a childhood dream come true. (American actress Brittany Curran) (In this context, "dream" is an abstract noun with a meaning similar to "hope.")
• When I was a little kid, I used to have a vivid recurring dream about Captain Hook. (American actress Cristin Milioti) (In this context, "dream" does not mean "hope." Here, "dream" could be classified as a concrete noun, especially if you think a dream is perceived via your senses.)

Yet More Examples of Abstract Nouns

Here are some more examples of abstract nouns:

anger, anxiety, beauty, beliefs, bravery, brilliance, chaos, charity, childhood, comfort, communication, compassion, courage, culture, curiosity, deceit, dedication, democracy, determination, energy, failure, faith, fear, freedom, friendship, generosity, gossip, happiness, hate, honesty, hope, imagination, information, integrity, intelligence, joy, justice, justice, kindness, knowledge, liberty, life, love, loyalty, luxury, misery, motivation, opportunity, pain, patience, peace, perseverance, pleasure, pride, relaxation, sacrifice, satisfaction, skill, strength, success, sympathy, talent, thought, trust, truth, warmth, and wisdom

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Why Abstract Nouns Are Important

Many creative writers (particularly poets), consider abstract nouns "the enemy." Even though abstract nouns cover many of the topics that poets like to address (e.g., love, loss, sadness, loneliness), poets know that using these words or their derivatives (e.g., I was in love; he was sad; she was lonely) tells their readers very little about their subjects. For poets, the challenge is often to capture these abstract feelings using concrete nouns.

• ...and my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today, all the dark blue speed drained out of it. (from "On Turning Ten" by American Poet Laureate Billy Collins
(Here, Billy Collins uses concrete nouns to contemplate the abstract ideas of ageing and the loss of innocence.)

From a business-writing perspective, there is no good reason to learn about abstract nouns. However, as so many language courses cover this term, it may be worth learning about abstract nouns from a passing-your-course perspective.

Remember that a noun is labelled as concrete or abstract based on its meaning not its grammatical function. In other words, abstract nouns and concrete nouns operate the same way grammatically.

Key Point

• If writing a poem, consider expressing abstract ideas using concrete nouns.

Video Lesson

Here is a short video summarizing the difference between abstract nouns and concrete nouns:

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Which of the following is abstract now?