common noun

common noun (fellesnavn, appellativ): a type of noun. Common nouns refer to (classes of) people, things, phenomena and ideas, i.e. they are not names unique to any member of a class (compare proper noun). Common nouns are spelled with lower-case letters. E.g. person, teacher, house, window, grammar, flower, idea, confidence, movement. Common nouns can occur with articles and modifiers, and countable nouns may vary between the singular and the plural.