Answer:
The italicized word is a noun.
Explanation:
A noun is that word that can represent a thing, a person, an animal, a place, a quality, or an idea. Most of the time it is simply a single word.
Nouns can be common or proper, where common nouns refer to people, places or things but in a general way. While a proper noun refers to something particular: Donald Trump, Chile, etc.
Nouns can be countable and uncountable.
As the name implies, countable nouns are those that can be counted: a house, a car, three tables.
While uncountable nouns are those that cannot be counted: water, snow, rain.
On the other hand we have the gerunds, which are those nouns that end in –ing. For example: I love cooking. (cooking is a gerund).
We also have the attributive nouns, which are those that modify another noun, for example: book store.
