Boyfriends or Boyfriend’s or Boyfriends’ (English Grammar Explained)

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Boyfriends is the plural for Boyfriend. Boyfriend’s is the singular possessive form of Boyfriend. Boyfriends’ is the plural possessive form of Boyfriends. 

Boyfriends or Boyfriend’s or Boyfriends’ are all pronounced the same way.

Because “Boyfriends” is usually singular, “Boyfriend’s”’ is usually correct. 

Boyfriends

We use Boyfriends when we want to make the word “Boyfriend” plural.

So it is:

I have one Boyfriend.

I have two Boyfriends. 

Boyfriend’s 

Boyfriend’s is the singular possessive form of Boyfriend. We use the possessive form of boyfriend when we want to show that one boyfriend owns something.

This is my boyfriend’s house.

I need to look after my boyfriend’s plant.

Remember we are talking about only one boyfriend. You can replace boyfriend’s with a name if that makes it easier to understand.

This is John’s house.

We need to look after John’s plant.

Boyfriends’ 

Boyfriends’ is the plural possessive form of boyfriends. When the noun already ends in “s” and we want to make the word possessive, we need to put the apostrophe after the “s”.

This is our Boyfriends’ house.

In this case, many of our boyfriends live in the house and they own the house together.

In spoken English, it can be difficult to know whether you are talking about one boyfriend or many boyfriends in the possessive because boyfriend’s and boyfriends’ sound exactly the same.

My Boyfriend’s Boyfriend?

If you want to talk about a friend of your boyfriend it is better to use the person’s name.

James is my boyfriend’s friend.

Remember “boyfriend” is usually used for romantic relationships. “Boy friend” can be used to show that somebody is a boy and a friend.  

Conor
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