How to Use apostrophe in a Sentence

apostrophe

noun
  • So what’s up with the apostrophe and the missing -th?
    — Harmeet Kaur, CNN Money, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Meaning, with an apostrophe to mark where the word has been shortened.
    — New York Times, 22 Sep. 2022
  • When a name ends in an s or a z sound, does the apostrophe belong at the end, as in Jones’?
    — Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Nov. 2021
  • Soon after the new sign was erected, someone drew an apostrophe on it.
    — Jenny Gross, New York Times, 10 May 2024
  • But apostrophes are never correct when they're used to make a last name plural.
    — Mary Catherine McAnnally Scott, Southern Living, 25 Nov. 2025
  • At some point over the years, an unnecessary apostrophe was added.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 June 2022
  • At some point in the 1970s, its name lost the apostrophe used by its lesser sisters.
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 Dec. 2021
  • Letters and emails arrived from all over with examples of misuse of the apostrophe.
    — James R. Hagerty, WSJ, 5 May 2021
  • Punctuation marks don’t come much smaller than the apostrophe.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 23 Oct. 2023
  • The diamond apostrophe is small.
    — Gabriel Alin Zainescu, Forbes.com, 20 June 2026
  • The apostrophe on the cover is upside down—a small yet powerful symbol of subverting the status quo.
    — Jennifer "jay" Palumbo, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2021
  • Back then — 1974, the web informs me — Burger King knew how to use an apostrophe.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 8 Oct. 2023
  • That worries people with names that have a hyphen, apostrophe or other special character.
    — cleveland, 3 Sep. 2020
  • The apostrophe is no longer only grammatical.
    — Gabriel Alin Zainescu, Forbes.com, 20 June 2026
  • The correct apostrophe later and perplexingly vanished from the name.
    — Los Angeles Times, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Specifically, the divisions are about how to use apostrophes when writing about the candidates in the possessive.
    — Mike Allen, Axios, 14 Aug. 2024
  • Michtom’s Teddy bear—the apostrophe soon disappeared—ignited a craze.
    — Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026
  • The chain, which started out as Lum’s with the apostrophe (just like Burdine’s / Burdines) had dozens of locations on what seemed like every main street.
    — Miami Herald Archive, Miami Herald, 12 Feb. 2025
  • And that is an ancient literary dynamic—a lyric condition, and a version of apostrophe, of addressing someone who can’t respond.
    — Cressida Leyshon, New Yorker, 21 June 2026
  • Another 10 call it Presidents' Day (note the apostrophe after the letter s).
    — Harry Enten, CNN, 21 Feb. 2022
  • Everyone is exasperated over three little letters and an apostrophe.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 6 May 2021
  • Officials said children with an apostrophe in their first or last names all had their cards accidentally deactivated by a processing partner.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 25 Nov. 2021
  • Friends had raved about this unspoiled, mountainous peninsula in Greece, which curves like an apostrophe around the Pagasetic Gulf, north of Athens.
    — Charlotte Higgins, Travel + Leisure, 9 Oct. 2023
  • Shouldn’t the apostrophe in Mothers Day go after the s, as in Mothers’ Day, not before the s, as in Mother’s Day?
    — Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 May 2026
  • Allowing for all that, about 14 states appear to refer to the holiday as President's Day (note the apostrophe before the letter s).
    — Harry Enten, CNN, 21 Feb. 2022
  • There is too much alphabet in the hospital rooms of my country, too much, too much alphabet, no place to stick an apostrophe; paint falls off the walls, showering us with words incomprehensible like men who, in wartime, refuse to speak.
    — Lesyk Panasiuk, The Atlantic, 8 May 2022
  • The Stenography Office isn't disputing the apostrophe that was added in by the White House press and communications team, rather how it was handled.
    — Justin Gomez, ABC News, 1 Nov. 2024
  • Unfortunately, what appeared didn’t show an apostrophe between the last letter of the six-letter answer and the immediately following single letter.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 16 Jan. 2024
  • Hackers can exploit these mistakes by entering strings that include apostrophes or other special characters into web fields that cause backend databases to do things the developers never intended them to do.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 7 July 2023
  • The experience underscored for him the apostrophe’s importance in clear communication.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'apostrophe.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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