Common Example of Uncountable Nouns: Enhance Your English Grammar

Did you just say “a kilo of sugars”? Are you the one to get confused when you are asked the plural form of “advice”? Then this article is just for you.

One of the key grammar concepts that act as a stumbling block for most IELTS students is the idea of the countable and uncountable noun. Let us find out more about them.

What is an Uncountable Noun?

You know what a noun is and what it does. But an uncountable noun is a word that:

• Doesn’t have a plural form. (e.g. Information).
• Always denotes things in the plural. (e.g. Pants).
• Cannot be quantified by a number.
• Will never have the articles ‘a’ or ‘an’ before them.

Example

Mum told me to buy some rice.

In no version of reality will you ever find ‘rice’ as a plural form of ‘rice’. Words like rice, water, sugar do not need an extra ‘s’ to denote plurality, because they cannot be counted.

Countable/ count nouns, on the other hand, are all those words that have plural forms, thus can be counted. Like mangoes, apples, carrots etc.

Types of Uncountable Nouns

Most uncountable nouns indicate the following:

• Liquids (milk, water etc.)
• Abstract ideas (advice, chaos, motivation.)
• Grains and powder (rice, wheat, sand etc.)
• Mass nouns (furniture, hair, transportation.)
• Natural phenomena (sunshine, snow, rain, weather.)
• States of being (childhood, stress, sleep.)
• Feelings (anger, happiness, enthusiasm, courage.)
• Gas (air, oxygen etc.)

Pronouns and Questioning Adverbs Used for Uncountable Nouns

Pronouns and questioning adverbs are crucial in writing because you need to pair them with the correct form of noun such as count noun/ abstract noun/ collective noun etc. They greatly depend on whether the noun is singular or plural. In the case of uncountable nouns here is how you should use them:

• Uncountable nouns- How much?/ This/ a lot of/ not much.
• Countable nouns- How many?/ These/ Many/ not many.

In order to express a measure of uncountable noun we use words like:

• For clothing: A piece of clothing
• For information: A piece of information/ some information
• For water: A glass of water/ a gallon of water.

Also Read : IELTS Reading Practice Test: Fill In The Blank Questions | Depletion of Natural Resources

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with A, B & C

Starts with “A”	Starts with “B”	Starts with “C”
Advice	Beauty	Cake
Aggression	Beef	Cash
Assistance	Bravery	Chaos
Attention	Business	Clothing
Accommodation	Blood	Confidence
Advertising	Botany	Compassion
Air	Bacon	Calm
Athletics	Baggage	Corruption
Access	Ballet	Courage
Adulthood	Butter	Comprehension
Alcohol	Biology	Cheese
Applause	Beer	Currency
Agriculture	Bread	Carbon
Atmosphere	Behaviour	Cardboard
Anger		Chalk
Art		Chess
Absence		Coal
Aid		Commerce
Arithmetic		Confusion
Age		Cookery

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with D, E & F

Starts with “D”	Starts with “E”	Starts with “F”
Danger	Education	Failure
Data	Economics	Fire
Dancing	Equipment	Fiction
Democracy	Earth	Fashion
Damage	Expense	Forgiveness
Darkness	Energy	Faith
Determination	Electricity	Flour
Delight	Enthusiasm	Flu
Depression	Environment	Fear
Driving	Enjoyment	Fun
Dignity	Energy	Fame
Dessert	Envy	Freedom
Design	Evil	Food
Dust	Engineering	Finance
Distribution	Entertainment	Fruit
Dirt	Evolution	Fuel
Duty	Existence	Friendship
	Ethics	Furniture
	Evidence	Flesh
	Employment

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with G, H & I

Starts with “G”	Starts with “H”	Starts with “I”
Gasoline	Harm	Ice
Genetics	Hair	Imagination
Garbage	Hardware	Information
Growth	Hydrogen	Independence
Grief	Help	Infrastructure
Grammar	Happiness	Ice cream
Garlic	Health	Importance
Gossip	Hate	Intelligence
Gold	Hope	Industry
Gymnastics	Hospitality	Irony
Glass	Homework	Injustice
Grass	Heat	Innocence
Golf	Hatred	Iron
Gratitude	Hunger	Insurance
Ground	Honey	Inflation
Guilt	Humour
	Honesty
	Height
	Housework
	History

ALSO READ 5 Previous IELTS Writing Task 2 Exam Questions and Answers To Target Band 9

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with J, K & L

Starts with “J”	Starts with “K”	Starts with “L”
Judo	Kindness	Laughter
Jealousy	Knowledge	Labour
Jam	Karate	Lava
Jewellery		Livestock
Joy		Luggage
Juice		Lightning
Justice		Land
		Leather
		Linguistics
		Light
		Loneliness
		Lack
		Litter
		Luck
		Love
		Leisure
		Logic
		Literature

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with M, N & O

Starts with “M”	Starts with “N”	Starts with “O”
Machinery	Nature	Obedience
Mail	Nitrogen	Obesity
Mankind	Nutrition	Oxygen
Marriage	Noise	Oil
Money	News
Magic	Nonsense
Marble	Nurture
Mercy
Music
Meat
Management
Mathematics
Moonlight
Methane
Milk
Metal
Mayonnaise
Mud
Mist
Motivation

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with P, Q & R

Starts with “P”	Starts with “Q”	Starts with “R”
Paper	Quartz	Reliability
Passion	Quality	Rum
Poetry	Quantity	Recreation
Parking		Reality
Pressure		Rubbish
Perfume		Revenge
Physics		Racism
Psychology		Rice
Peel		Relief
Pepper		Respect
Patience		Rain
Permission		Relaxation
Peace		Research
Philosophy		Religion
Plastic
Progress
Production
Pollution
Pleasure
Pork

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with S, T & U

Starts with “S”	Starts with “T”	Starts with “U”
Salt	Tea	Understanding
Safety	Tolerance	Usage
Salad	Thirst	Underwear
Scaffolding	Technology	Unemployment
Soil	Trousers	Unity
Satisfaction	Tennis
Sand	Trade
Satire	Timber
Security	Turbulence
Sorrow	Toothpaste
Seafood	Time
Speed	Traffic
Scenery	Travel
Sewing	Toast
Strength	Thunder
Space	Transportation
Software	Trust
Seaside	Trouble
Stream	Temperature
Stupidity

Examples of Uncountable Nouns Starting with V, W, Y & Z

Starts with “V”	Starts with “W”	Starts with “Y”	Starts with “Z”
Violence	Warmth	Yoga	Zoology
Veal	Weight	Youth	Zinc
Validity	Whiskey	Yeast
Vitality	Weather
Vinegar	Wildlife
Vision	Water
Vegetation	Welfare
Vegetarianism	Wine
Vengeance	Wisdom
	Wood
	Wealth
	Wheat
	Wool
	Width
	Work

Conclusion:

IELTS test on how well you are aware of the grammatical nuances rather than just knowing grammar. They also focus more on the parts that are regularly used in speaking and writing.

The concept of countable and uncountable is one such aspect of grammar. Therefore, it is very important that you have a clear understanding of the two and use them correctly in your speaking and writing.

Also Read : IELTS Grammar: 7 Goldern Rules You Should Know