A noun names a person, place, thing or idea, while a pronoun replaces a noun so you do not have to repeat it. Memory hook: pronoun starts with pro-, meaning in place of, which is exactly its job. Ella is a noun; her, standing in for Ella, is a pronoun.
The core difference
A noun names something directly, while a pronoun stands in for a noun that has already been named or is understood from context.
- noun — names a person, place, thing, or idea: "Dog," "London," and "happiness" are all nouns.
- pronoun — used in place of a noun, such as I, you, she, it, they, this or who: In "Ella lost her keys", "her" is a pronoun.
How to tell them apart
The word pronoun literally means in place of a name, from Latin pro (in place of) plus nomen (name). That is the clearest test: if a word is standing in for a name that has already been mentioned, such as she, it or they, it is a pronoun. If it is the name or label itself, it is a noun.
Pronoun also has a second, more modern sense worth knowing: it can refer to the set of personal pronouns a person uses for themselves, such as she/her or they/them, often listed so others know how to address them correctly.
