Proper noun in the context of "Uppercase and lowercase"

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⭐ Core Definition: Proper noun

A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa; Jupiter; Sarah; Microsoft) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a continent, another planet, these persons, our corporation). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Hendersons, the Everglades, the Azores, the Pleiades). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the Mozart experience; his Azores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no Pavarotti; a few would-be Napoleons). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.

A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names. By this strict distinction, because the term noun is used for a class of single words (tree, beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: Peter and Africa are both proper names and proper nouns; but Peter the Great and South Africa, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. The term common name is not much used to contrast with proper name, but some linguists have used it for that purpose. While proper names are sometimes called simply names, this term is often used more broadly: "An earlier name for tungsten was wolfram." Words derived from proper names are occasionally called proper adjectives (or proper adverbs, and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. For example, chastity is a common noun even though chastity is considered a unique abstract entity (constrasted with the personal name Chastity, which is a proper name).

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Proper noun in the context of Name

A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a specific individual human. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning as well) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes called "common names" or (obsolete) "general names". A name can be given to a person, place, or thing; for example, parents can give their child a name or a scientist can give an element a name.

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Proper noun in the context of Letter case

Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally majuscule) and smaller lowercase (more formally minuscule) in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems that distinguish between the upper- and lowercase have two parallel sets of letters: each in the majuscule set has a counterpart in the minuscule set. Some counterpart letters have the same shape, and differ only in size (e.g. ⟨C, c⟩ ⟨S, s⟩ ⟨O, o⟩ ), but for others the shapes are different (e.g., ⟨A, a⟩ ⟨G, g⟩ ⟨F, f⟩). The two case variants are alternative representations of the same letter: they have the same name and pronunciation and are typically treated identically when sorting in alphabetical order.

Letter case is generally applied in a mixed-case fashion, with both upper and lowercase letters appearing in a given piece of text for legibility. The choice of case is often denoted by the grammar of a language or by the conventions of a particular discipline. In orthography, the uppercase is reserved for special purposes, such as the first letter of a sentence or of a proper noun (called capitalisation, or capitalised words), which makes lowercase more common in regular text.

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Proper noun in the context of Homeland

A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic nationalist connotations. A homeland may also be referred to as a fatherland, a motherland, or a mother country, depending on the culture and language of the nationality in question.

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Proper noun in the context of Church of Scotland

The Church of Scotland (CoS; Scots: The Kirk o Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais na h-Alba) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades (in 1982 it had nearly 920,000 members), the government Scottish Household Survey concluded that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019.

In the 2022 census, 20.4% of the Scottish population, or 1,108,796 adherents, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity. The Church of Scotland's governing system is presbyterian in its approach; therefore, no one individual or group within the church has more or less influence over church matters. There is no one person who acts as the head of faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". As a proper noun, the Kirk is an informal name for the Church of Scotland used in the media and by the church itself.

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Proper noun in the context of Pydna curse tablets

The Pydna curse tablets are a collection of six texts or catalogues written in Ancient Greek that were found at the ruins of Pydna, a prominent city of ancient Macedon, between 1994 and 1997. They were discovered during the archaeological excavations of the Makrygialos cemetery and were first published by Curbera and Jordan in 2003. Each tablet contains a curse or magic spell (Ancient Greek: κατάδεσμος, katadesmos), probably all of judicial nature, and has been dated to the 4th century BC. Three of them are merely name catalogues, while the others also contain language which indicates they were meant to influence legal proceedings. The tablets document in total 66 individuals, most of whom bear well-known Greek names. The onomasticon of the tablets can be overall characterized as typically ancient Macedonian (e.g. Amyntas, Philippos, Pausanias etc.). The tablets have had important contribution to modern understanding of ancient Macedonian anthroponymy and prosopography, particularly in the city of Pydna.

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