inanimate noun

A semantic category of noun that refers to a place, thing, or idea--not a person, animal, or other creature. Contrast with animate noun.

Examples and Observations:

• "Bill Clinton loves to shop. On a March day in an elegant crafts store in Lima, the Peruvian capital, he hunted for presents for his wife and the women on his staff back home. He had given a speech at a university earlier and just came from a ceremony kicking off a program to help impoverished Peruvians. Now he was eyeing a necklace with a green stone amulet."
  (Peter Baker, "It's Not About Bill," The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 2009)



• "Your complaints about late delay are not only completely unjustified, but also ungrammatical. The fault lies in your inability to fill in an order form correctly. You are, in effect, a pompous, illiterate baboon."
  (Leonard Rossiter in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, 1976)



• "Many English teachers advise against applying the possessive case to inanimate objects. Possession is a privilege limited to living things. It does not make sense for a car or a house or a bicycle to own anything in the way that the possessive case expresses ownership. The type of possession allowed inanimate objects is typically expressed by the phrase beginning with of:

  the roof of the house not the house's roof
  
  the hood of the car not the car's hood
  
  the tire of the bike not the bike's tire

  "Like many grammar issues, however, this one requires a judgment call. Through popular usage, some nouns that name inanimate objects have acquired the rights to their possessive case forms:

  my mind's eye
  a moment's delay
  a week's vacation
  two weeks' notice
  the sun's rays
  the Season's Greetings

  At times creative license may grant you the right to make use of an inanimate object in a possessive form."
  (Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas, The Grammar Bible, Owl Books, 2004)