Here is a list of these nouns:
affair
approach
area
back
band
base
bottom
boundary
branch
case
centre
circumstances
citizenship
class
condition
crisis
culture
depth
development
discovery
eater
edge
edition
element
end
enterprise
epidemic
experience
extent
feeling
field
formation
fringe
ground
growth
head
height
impression
inception
kind
length
level
limit
line
matter
movement
nature
note
period
point
position
power
prime
range
rate
regime
relic
repertoire
rise
role
scale
side
sort
stage
status
structure
stuff
style
system
texture
theory
thought
time
tone
top
transfer
type
version
view
wave
way
wear
wing
world
Adjectives used as nouns: the poor, the impossible
1.66 When you want to talk about groups of people who share the same characteristic or quality, you can use the + adjective. For example, instead of saying poor people, you can say the poor.
…the help that’s given to the blind.
No effort is made to cater for the needs of the elderly.
…the task of rescuing the injured.
…men and women who would join the sad ranks of the unemployed.
Working with the young is stimulating and full of surprises.
…providing care for the sick, the aged, the workless and the poor.
Note that you never add -s to the adjective, even though it always refers to more than one person.
1.67 Although some adjectives are commonly used in this way, in fact it is possible to use almost any adjective in this way.
noun–verb agreement
1.68 When the adjective being used as a noun is the subject of a verb, you use a plural form of the verb.
The rich have benefited much more than the poor.
being more specific
1.69 If you want to talk about a more specific group of people, you put a submodifying adverb (= an adverb that you put in front of an adjective to give more information about it) or another adjective in front of the headword. For more information about submodifying adverbs, see paragraphs 2.140 to 2.168.
In this anecdote, Ray shows his affection for the very old and the very young.
…the highly educated.
…the urban poor.
If you mention two groups, you sometimes omit the.
…a study that compared the diets of rich and poor in several nations.
…to help break down the barriers between young and old.
With a few words such as unemployed and dead, you can say how many people you are referring to by putting a number in front of them.
We estimate there are about three hundred dead.
qualities
1.70 When you want to refer to the quality of something rather than to the thing itself, you can use the appropriate adjective with the.
Don’t you think that you’re wanting the impossible?
He is still exploring the limits of the possible.
…a mix of the traditional and the modern.
colours
1.71 All colour adjectives can also be used as nouns.
…patches of blue.
…brilliant paintings in reds and greens and blues.
Clothing of a particular colour can be referred to simply by using the colour adjective.
The men wore grey.
…the fat lady in black.
1.72 Nationality adjectives that end in -ch, -sh, -se, or -ss can be used in a similar way, unless there is a separate noun for the people. For example, French people are referred to as the French but Polish people are referred to as Poles or the Poles.
For many years the Japanese have dominated the market for Chinese porcelain.
Britons are the biggest consumers of chocolate after the Swiss and the Irish.
Nouns referring to males or females
1.73 English nouns are not masculine, feminine, or neuter in the way that nouns in some other languages are. For example, most names of jobs, such as teacher, doctor, and writer, are used for both men and women.
But some nouns refer only to males and others only to females.
For example, some nouns indicating people’s family relationships, such as father, brother, and son, and some nouns indicating people’s jobs, such as waiter and policeman, are used only to refer to males.
In the same way mother, sister, daughter, waitress, actress, and sportswoman are used only to refer to females.
-ess and -woman
1.74 Words that refer to women often end in -ess, for example actress, waitress, and hostess. Another ending is -woman, as in policewoman and sportswoman.
…his wife Susannah, a former air stewardess.
A policewoman dragged me out of the crowd.
Steph Burton was named sportswoman of the year.
-man and -person
1.75 Words ending in -man are either used to refer only to men or to both men and women. For example, a postman is a man, but a spokesman can be a man or a woman.
Some people now use words ending in -person, such as chairperson and spokesperson, instead of words ending in -man, in order to avoid appearing to refer specifically to a man.