A noun is a person, place, thing, animal, or idea. Basically, anything that needs to be identified can be done so with a noun. Nouns are one of the main parts of speech, and can be enhanced by adjectives. Some examples of common nouns are things like table, dog, city, love, movie, ocean, book. A proper noun is a noun that references a specific person, place, thing, animal or idea. Everything around you is a noun, and so learning to identify common and proper nouns is important for your writing.