Question

What are examples of mass nouns?

Answer 1

Hint: Noun is the names of any person, place, animal and idea. Thus, it is also known as a ‘naming word’. There are different types of nouns. The main categories are proper nouns, common nouns, collective nouns and abstract nouns. However, there are other categories as well which are countable, non-countable, gerund, concrete, compound and gender-specific nouns.

Complete answer:
Uncountable nouns are also known as mass nouns or non-count nouns. They only have singular forms and do not exist in plural forms. They cannot be counted. In order to quantify these nouns, we will have to use -
Quantifiers - A little, a bit, few, some, any. E.g Some sugar.
Determiners - much, little, less, fewer. E.g There wasn’t much rain.
‘Count noun + word that tells quantity + of’ - 1 kg, 6 pieces, 4 plates etc. E.g. I will eat one plate of rice.

In the case of categories of foods and liquids, we can also add ‘s’ to make the noun plural. For e.g. wine- wines, coffee-coffees etc.

Some examples of mass nouns are as follows-
i) She had her privacy concerns. - In this case, privacy is the mass noun as privacy cannot be counted. This sentence is an example of an idea/ concept as a mass noun. Other examples of concepts as mass nouns can be justice, equality. Even natural qualities like optimism, truth, honesty also are examples of mass nouns.
ii) She combed her hair. - Hair due to its large quantity cannot be measured. This sentence is an example of large quantities as a mass noun.
iii) I bought furniture for my house. - Furniture is a category in which chairs, sofa, table etc. are included. Such categories also function as mass nouns. More examples are clothing, jewellery etc.

- Natural phenomena like rain, wind etc also function as mass nouns as they cannot be counted.
- Raw materials like wood, cotton, wool etc also function as mass nouns as they cannot be counted.
- All gases and liquids are also included in the category of mass nouns. For e.g. petrol, oxygen, water etc.

Note: We use “amount of “ with mass nouns and “number/quantity of “ with countable nouns. More needs to be learned on the use of quantifiers, determiners and count nouns in order to understand the proper way of pluralising the mass nouns.