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Definition of Mass noun
1. Noun. A noun that does not form plurals.
Definition of Mass noun
1. Noun. A noun that normally cannot be counted. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Literary usage of Mass noun
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage by Inc. Merriam-Webster (1994)
"We might conjecture then, from this little information about sort, that the idioms
first form with the singular felt to be a mass noun, frequently with a ..."
2. Grammatical Synthesis: The Art of English Composition by Henry Noble Day (1870)
"In the same way, I may say " Water is fluid," using the word "water " as a
mass-noun; or " Rain water is soft," using the same word as a class-noun. ..."
3. The Young Composer: A Guide to English Grammar & Composition by Henry Noble Day (1870)
"The same word, it should be borne in mind, may be, in one use, a Proper Noun; in
another, a Class-noun; in still another, a Collective Noun, or a Mass-noun. ..."
4. The Denotation of Generic Terms in Ancient Indian Philosophy: Grammar, Nyāya by Peter M. Scharf (1996)
"For example, the word 'wood', like the words 'clay' and 'gold', is a mass noun.
It denotes the substance out of which trees and other objects are made. ..."
5. Grammar as a Science by Benjamin Franklin Sisk (1903)
"A name given to a substance, considered simply as substance, is a substance noun,
or a mass noun. ..."
6. A Modern Composition and Rhetoric (complete Course) Containing the by Lewis Worthington Smith, James Eames Thomas (1901)
"-cule. molecule, a small mass. Noun Suffixes = one who is (objective) ; that
which is. -ee. committee, that to which something is committed. ..."
7. A Modern Composition and Rhetoric (brief Course) Containing the Principles by Lewis Worthington Smith, James Eames Thomas (1900)
"-cule. molecule, a small mass. Noun Suffixes = one who is (objective) ; that
which is. -ee. committee, that to which something is committed. ..."
8. The New York Teacher, and the American Educational Monthly (1868)
"... plain confounding of thought as "a class- noun" with thought as "a mass-noun."
(See Day's "Art of Composition," pp. 41,.) For when the author says, ..."
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