Adjective vs Abstract Noun
Adjective and Abstract noun are two terms used in English grammar that show difference between them and they should not be considered one and the same. There are eight parts of speech in English grammar and adjective is one of them. It describes the quality of the noun. In other words, it can be said that an adjective describes the noun it qualifies. This is the primary duty of an adjective.
On the other hand, an abstract noun is one that looks abstract in appearance and yet it is used as a noun. In other words, it can be said that abstract nouns are noun forms that look abstract in appearance. This is the main difference between the two words. Observe the two sentences,
1. Francis is a nice person.
2. Angela accepts the red rose.
In both the sentences, you can see that the words ‘nice’ and ‘red’ are used as adjectives. In other words, they are used to describe the quality of the two nouns, namely, ‘person’ and ‘rose’ respectively. In short, it can be said that the word ‘nice’ describes the quality of the person, and the word ‘red’ describes the quality of the rose. This is an important observation to make in the study of adjectives.
On the other hand, an abstract noun is the one that is used as a noun and it is formed from a verb as in the case of many other regular nouns. It is important to know that nouns generally are formed from verbs. For example, the noun ‘running’ is an abstract noun. It is abstract in its form. Although the word ‘running’ is the present continuous form of the verb ‘run’, yet it is also considered as an abstract noun as in the sentence ‘His running was good’. In this sentence the word ‘running’ is used as an abstract noun.