Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The superscript sign ( ' ) used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters from a word, the possessive case, or the plurals of numbers, letters, and abbreviations.
- n. The direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In rhetoric, a digressive address; the interruption of the course of a speech or writing, in order to address briefly a person or persons (present or absent, real or imaginary) individually or separately; hence, any abrupt interjectional speech. Originally the term was applied only to such an address made to one present.
- n. In botany, the arrangement of chlorophyl-granules under the action of direct sunlight (light-apostrophe), and in darkness (dark-apostrophe): in the first case upon the lateral walls of the cells, so that their edges are presented to the light; in the latter, upon the lateral and basal cell-walls: used in distinction from epistrophe (which see).
- n. In grammar, the omission of one or more letters in a word.
- n. In writing and printing, the sign (') used to indicate such omission. The omission may be of a letter or letters regularly written but not sounded, as in
tho ' for though, liv'd for lived, aim'd for aimed, etc.; of a letter or letters regularly sounded and written, and omitted only in poetical or colloquial speech, as ino'er for over, don't for do not, etc.; or of a letter regularly sounded but not written, as in the possessives church's, fox's, Jones's, etc., and so formerly often in similar plurals now written in full, as churches, foxes, Joneses. The apostrophe is now extended to all possessives (except of pronouns) as a mere sign of the case, as boy's, lion's, etc., also when the suffix is omitted, as inconscience' sake , and in plural possessives, as boys', lions'; and it is still used in some unusual or peculiar plurals, as many D. D.'s and LL.D.'s, a succession of a's, four 9's, etc. - n. The sign (') used for other purposes, especially, single or double, as a concluding mark of quotation, as in “‘Well done,' said he.” See quotation-mark.
Wiktionary
- n. The text character ’, that serves as a punctuation mark in various languages and as a diacrictical mark in certain rare contexts.
- n. A sudden exclamatory piece of dialogue addressed to someone or something, especially absent.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present.”
- n. The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been.
- n. The mark ['] used to denote that a word is contracted (as in
ne'er for never,can't for can not), and as a sign of the possessive, singular and plural; as, a boy's hat, boys' hats. In the latter use it originally marked the omission of the lettere .
WordNet 3.0
- n. address to an absent or imaginary person
- n. the mark (') used to indicate the omission of one or more letters from a printed word
Etymologies
- French, from Late Latin apostrophus, from Greek apostrophos, from apostrephein, to turn away : apo-, apo- + strephein, to turn; see streb(h)- in Indo-European roots.Late Latin apostrophē, from Greek, from apostrephein, to turn away; see apostrophe1.
Examples
“An apostrophe is missing from “childrens”, and there is a strong case for making “menu” plural, but these lapses are so frequent in signs as to be mundane; it is the appearance of “Al” that makes it irresistible.”
“I guess that being French, the incredibly sophisticated and capricious ways the apostrophe is used in my language has given me full confidence that I would be forgiven whatever I would do in another language.”
“The apostrophe is used when you abbreviate the decade as the '90s (the apostrophe indicates the missing numerals).”
“Log in to Reply jadechimera (UID#1821) on September 8th, 2009 at 4: 33 pm lack of possessive apostrophe is also fail …”
do you know they use your head to block little girls vaginas on the internet | My[confined]Space
“The apostrophe is no picnic in a last name either.”
Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » The Apostrophe: Most Vexing Punctuation Mark?
“In summary, both with and without an apostrophe are okay, but it seems without the apostrophe is preferred.”
“The apostrophe is misused extensively; more so, perhaps, than any other punctuation mark.”
“An apostrophe is commonly used to indicate omitted characters.”
“We went out to dinner, but had no real plan for where we were going, so ended up going to the Captain Americas (the lack of an apostrophe is theirs, not mine) on the vague idea we'd have burgers.”
“The rhetorically violent apostrophe, then, punctuates a series of political evils that demand action, but the violence of the apostrophe is followed by a sequence accenting rational analysis and peaceful discussion, not storming the barricades.”
The Discourse of Treason, Sedition, and Blasphemy in British Political Trials, 1794-1820
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘apostrophe’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 322 more...
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Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 280 more...
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Rhetorical Devices
syllepsis, zeugma, trope, wellerism, anastrophe, anaphora, apostrophe, metonymy, chiasmus, antimetabole, syncope, open-list and 431 more...
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Marks
names of punctuation marks, accent marks, and other graphic signs and graphical characters used in printed, written, or digital text.
comma, period, parenthesis, apostrophe, colon, semicolon, slash, stroke, brackets, dash, em dash, en dash and 66 more...

grant_barrett Thanks for the cool article. I just tweeted it.
http://twitter.com/wordnik/status/8866809162 Feb 9, 2010
reesetee A study of the evolution of the apostrophe is underway.
Edit: Link isn't working, so here it is: http://bit.ly/bzaBe8 Feb 9, 2010
jorge999 great link bilby, you deserve an apost trophy. Nov 9, 2009
reesetee At last! :-D Nov 8, 2009
bilby Speaking of stickers, help is at hand. Nov 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi Etymologically: apo-strophe, a from-turning (or turning-from, I guess) Sep 7, 2009
manilamac Of course, I found apostrophe and adumbrate, but there were no links for what I was really looking for: apostrophized and adumbrated. Writers, in addition to being endlessly interested in rhetoric, are often at sea seeking interesting words for the attribution of quotations. I recently encountered, in adjacent paragraphs, one quoted person who adumbrated his quote, followed by a second person who apostrophized his. Wow! I wanted to check this out. Naturally, there are those who would have us substitute “said” for both these words, but never mind those people.
Then, there’s the fascinating relation between adumbrated and chiaroscuro. All of these connections were made in my head, not on the site. For instance, none of the examples for apostrophe had reference to rhetoric; there were no rhetorical examples. What’s a writer to do? Could you help? Maybe there literary geniuses out there just waiting for such revelations. What? I’m supposed to find those examples and send them to you? We’ll see.
Aug 4, 2009
bilby Sounds like you have a lot more guerilla bestickering ahead, sarra. Feb 2, 2009
sionnach So the plural of datum is dat'a? Feb 1, 2009
sarra skip, you missed the deliberate irony in that headline!
I am slightly miffed that no-one's reported on my bestickering, long ago, an apostropheless St Philip's Place (also Birmingham). You heard it here first. Or last. Feb 1, 2009
skipvia It's a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain. Feb 1, 2009
whichbe The Apostrophe Protection Society May 11, 2008
mollusque No, because CD is more than one letter. The plural is CDs. Apr 22, 2008
gangerh Is that true, mollusque? I don't remember ever knowing that. So cd's is correct for more than one cd, is it? Apr 22, 2008
mollusque Except for plurals of letters (e.g., "a's", "b's", not "as", "bs"). Apr 21, 2008
bilby Goe's without saying. Apr 21, 2008
gangerh An apostrophe does not a plural make. Apr 21, 2008
gangerh I'd give up my whole apostrophe to have an id. Apr 21, 2008
frindley Remember always to use an apostrophe (not an open quote mark) when it appears at the beginning of a word, e.g. ’cause (for because) and ’60s rather than ‘cause and ‘60s.
Alas, the evil microsoft delights in making unsolicited corrections. Mar 30, 2008
evin290 A digression in the form of an address to someone not present, or to a personified object or idea May 20, 2007
uselessness Don't put apostrophe's where they don't belong. Jan 25, 2007