"Table" is a concrete noun.
A word that can act as a subject in a sentence is called a noun . Nouns, in this way, are names that refer to objects or beings. Concrete , for its part, is an adjective that refers to what is solid or that is opposite to what is abstract.
A concrete noun , therefore, is a term that refers to something material , capable of being perceived through the senses . This characteristic differentiates concrete nouns from abstract nouns , which refer to concepts developed by intelligence or thought.
Examples of concrete noun
An example of a concrete noun is “table” . The term refers to a piece of furniture that can be round, square or rectangular, has a table to support objects and has legs that raise it from the ground. The “table” can be perceived through the eyes and touched. If someone points out that “The table is broken” , in this way, it will mean that the furniture in question suffers some type of damage.
“Dog” is also a concrete noun. In this case, the noun designates a four-legged mammalian animal that lives in the company of humans as a pet. “My dog eats rice” , “That dog runs very fast” and “My sister loves dogs” are some sentences that use this specific noun.
It should be noted that a noun, in addition to being concrete, can be included in other categories. Returning to the previous examples, we can affirm that “table” and “dog” are also common nouns and individual nouns .
Since it can be perceived through the senses, "dog" is a concrete noun.
Differences with abstracts
Returning to the concept of an abstract noun, it is also correct to say that it is a type of word that refers to a thing that cannot be perceived through the senses , exactly the opposite of what we have seen with respect to the concrete noun. It can be an idea, a feeling or a sensation, for example, that each individual imagines and interprets in a different and particular way. Some of the most common are "love," "friendship," "happiness," "courage," "guilt," "hope," and "pleasure."
In addition to the differences just explained between these two types of nouns, it is important to note that concrete nouns are the first that we master in our lives, since they are easier to understand and, given the limited tools we have to communicate during breastfeeding , the most practical to include in our first messages .
For example, when a child begins to babble his first words, it is normal for him to try to make reference to one of his family members, to one of his favorite toys or to food, which are the closest and clearest components of his environment. . It is not common that he decides to give his opinion about the economic situation of his country, about his older sister's nerves about the exam she will have to take at college or about how fascinating it is for him to be able to share his life with his dog, despite of belonging to a different species .
Concrete nouns according to Ortega y Gasset
The prominent essayist and philosopher José Ortega y Gasset offered a somewhat different point of view regarding the definition of concrete and abstract nouns: according to him, the former are those that exist absolutely independently, that can be understood without the help of another term , while abstract ones only exist or can be visualized if they are related to a concrete one.
Let's look at some examples of Ortega y Gasset's vision. When we hear the word " beauty ", for example, we cannot understand it if we do not associate it with a specific noun, which can be different for each person: someone may think of a horse while another, of a person, and a third, of a landscape For this reason, we understand that "beauty" is an abstract noun, since it needs a concrete noun ("horse", "person" or "landscape", in this case) to exist.