mass noun

English

Noun

Examples
information water wood

mass noun (plural mass nouns)

2. A common noun that normally cannot be counted.

   Synonyms: material noun, non-count noun, noncount noun, uncountable noun

   Antonyms: countable noun, count noun

   Hypernym: common noun

Usage notes

• In English, mass nouns may have no plural form (for example, informations is invalid in most varieties of English), and they are not used with the indefinite article or numbers in almost all of their senses. In contrast, they may stand on their own or use a determiner (wildlife, some wildlife, but not a wildlife).
• Mass nouns may refer to something abstract (evidence, happiness) or an indeterminate whole (the public, trash).
• Many mass nouns, such as whisky, can also be count nouns when they refer to a varietal (“Scotch and Canadian whiskies”) or to denote a serving (“please bring us two whiskies”).
• Conversely many count nouns can also be used as mass nouns.

Translations

noun describing something that cannot be counted

• Cebuano: paningob
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 不可數名詞 / 不可数名词 (zh) (bùkěshǔ míngcí)

• Dutch: niet-telbaar zelfstandig naamwoord n, niet-telbaar substantief n
• Finnish: ainesana (fi)
• French: nom massif (fr) m, nom non comptable (fr) m, nom indénombrable (fr) m
• German: Stoffname (de) m, Stoffsubstantiv n, Stoffbezeichnung n, unzählbares Substantiv n
• Hungarian: nem megszámlálható főnév, nem számszerű főnév, megszámlálhatatlan főnév
• Irish: ainmfhocal maise m
• Japanese: 不可算名詞 (ja) (ふかさんめいし, fukasan meishi)
• Korean: 불가산명사 (ko) (bulgasanmyeongsa)
• Polish: rzeczownik zbiorowy (pl) m
• Romanian: substantiv nenumărabil n
• Russian: неисчисля́емое существи́тельное n (neisčisljájemoje suščestvítelʹnoje)
• Spanish: nombre incontable (es) m (de (es) sustancia (es))
• Welsh: enw cynnull m

See also

• collective noun
• noun of assemblage
• noun of multitude
• singulare tantum
• Wiktionary's coverage of English mass nouns
• Appendix:English collective nouns
• Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by collective term

References

• “mass noun”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Sense 1

Usage notes

• CMOS, 18th ed., page 237-238: “Mass nouns”