A noun is either proper (one's own name, Fred) or common (a name common to a class of objects, table). Three varieties of common nouns deserve special mention: collective nouns, - names of groups (school, class, family, nation, company); abstract nouns, - names of qualities, or attributes, separated from the objects that possess them (kindness, honesty, distance, truth); and verbal nouns, - names of actions. They are formed from verbs (walking, to walk, seeing, to see).