it is.' name='description'> it's - definition and meaning

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • Contraction of it is.
  • Contraction of it has.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • phrase It is.
  • phrase It has.
  • phrase colloquial there's, there is; there're, there are
  • adjective Alternative form of its.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Contraction of ‘it is’ or ‘it has’.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From it +‎ ’s.

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Examples

  • It you're doing a label it's not for the manufacturer or dealers.

    CNET News.com 2011

  • Ms. Holston said her daughter had a tattoo on her right arm of a basketball with the phrase "it's not the game, it's my life" written in it.

    High-School Basketball Star Is Slain Tamer El-Ghobashy 2011

  • No one steals a word it's called language evolution.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2012

  • As a title it's OK, but that's the only interesting thing in the lyrics, I would say.

    The Guardian World News Decca Aitkenhead 2011

  • "If this goes down and helps the Yankees and helps us both long term and short term it's a win-win for everybody."

    The Seattle Times 2012

  • David Renz, director of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, said it is obvious that things must change, but in the short term it's impossible to adequately fund a system.

    Kansas City Star: News 2011

  • In the year since then, I've heard the phrase "it's unsustainable," or something close to it, repeated dozens of times by clients including corporate executives, government employees, small-business owners, hospital administrators and physicians, school administrators and teachers.

    NYT > Home Page By TONY SCHWARTZ 2011

  • A reader named Kevin, while enjoying the online vocabulary-building feature A Word a Day wordsmith.org, was surprised to see the expression "it's a dog's life" included in a list of terms indicating hardship and unpleasantness.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed WARREN CLEMENTS 2011

  • "If this goes down and helps the Yankees and helps us both long term and short term it's a win-win for everybody."

    The Seattle Times 2012

  • David Renz, director of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, said it is obvious that things must change, "but in the short term it's impossible to adequately fund a system."

    Kansas City Star: News 2011

Comments

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  • Not to be confused with its.

    April 3, 2009

  • "It's made me proud to know and admire her for decades, and even prouder to nominate her to our Nation's highest court." - President Barack Obama on Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court - 11 May 2010 Note: one rarely sees it's used for 'it has'

    May 12, 2010

  • Definitely to be confused with "its"

    https://books.google.ca/books?id=Ibc9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA61

    "The oldest instances of it's quoted by Mr Aldis Wright are from Florio's Worlde of Wordes (1598), and the same writer's Montaigne (1603); but, as instances are frequent there - "for it's owne sake," "science had it's of spring," "doe it's best," "it's name," etc.- it seems likely that Florio only confirmed a previous custom. At all events, the mongrel had been born in Florio's time and had begun a career more remarkable than has fallen to the chance of perhaps any other word in the English language."

    also - link to Fioro's Worlde of Wordes  https://books.google.ca/books?id=YdFaAAAAcAAJ

    under the entry for sgrammaticare
    Sgramaticare, to play the foolish grammarian, or pedante, to dispute grammaticallie."  https://books.google.ca/books?id=YdFaAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA369  
    Montaigne's 1603 Essays books are full of it's

    December 25, 2015