Count and Noncount Nouns

Count nouns can be counted. E.g. coins, jobs, etc. Noncount nouns can't. E.g. money, work, etc.
Whether a noun is count or noncount affects the articles and adjectives used with it, as well as subject/verb agreement.

Count Nouns
A singular count noun must be preceded by an article (a, an, the), a possessive adjective (the company's, Mark's, etc.) or a possessive pronoun (my, your, her, his, its, our, their).

A plural count noun is often, but not always, preceded by the definite article (the).

Noncount Nouns
Noncount nouns do not have plural forms. They take the singular forms of verbs and have to be counted with quantifiers (a lot of, much, etc.) A or an can't be used with noncount nouns. However, they can be used with phrases like a piece of ..., a bottle of ..., etc.
There are several types of noncount nouns:

  • abstract ideas - power, wealth, truth
  • areas of study - architecture, science, history
  • fluids - water, gasoline, alcohol
  • gerunds - working, traveling, managing
  • languages - English, German, Japanese
  • solids - silver, ice, steel
  • some natural occurrences - sunlight, fog, gravity
  • things with individual particles - salt, sugar, dust
  • types of sports - soccer, tennis, football
  • whole groups made up of similar things - traffic, food, paper

Some nouns can be count and noncount. When this is possible the meanings of the words are different. For example:

"capital" means "a large letter" or "the official seat of government of a country" (count)
"capital" also means "money or wealth used in trade" (non-count)
"interest" means "a thing you like to do or participate in" (count)
"interest" also means "money paid for the use of money" (non-count)

Quantifiers
There are a number of different quantifiers.

  • One, each and every are only used with singular count nouns.
  • The following are only used with plural count nouns: many, both, several, a number of, two, three, etc.
  • A little, much and a great deal of are used with noncount nouns.
  • Not any, no, some, a lot of, lots of, plenty, most and all can be used with count and noncount nouns.

Here are some examples of noncount nouns.

advice
anger
attire
behavior
capital
cash
caution
clothing
common sense
confidence
courage
crime
despair

employment
engineering
entertainment
equipment
experience
furniture
gas / gasoline
health
help
honesty
humidity
information

insurance

intelligence
interest
justice
knowledge
machinery
mail
merchandise
money
news
optimism
paper
paperwork

patience
pay
permission
pessimism
pollution
poverty
power
praise
produce
progress
propaganda
remorse

research
satisfaction
traffic
transportation
trash
truth
unemployment
violence
water
wealth
weather
work