Language needs labels for the furniture of experience. A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, quality, or abstract entity and typically functions as the head of a noun phrase.

Nouns may be common or proper, count or mass, concrete or abstract. They participate in number, case, and gender depending on the language. Syntactically they serve as subjects, objects, and complements.

Children acquire nouns early, often mapping new labels onto objects around them. Dictionaries devote large shares of entries to nouns because referential vocabulary is vast. Cross-linguistic comparison shows that what counts as a noun-worthy concept can vary subtly between cultures.

• Word class naming entities and abstractions
• Heads noun phrases in sentence structure
• Inflects for number, case, or gender in many languages
• Central to reference and description