Parents or Parent’s or Parents’ (English Grammar Explained)

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Parents is the plural for parent. Parent’s is the singular possessive form of parent. Parents’ is the plural possessive form of parents. 

Parents or parent’s or parents’ are all pronounced the same way.

Because “parents” is usually plural, parents’ is usually correct. 

Parents

We use parents when we want to make the word “parent” plural.

So it is:

I have one parent.

I have two parents. 

Parent’s 

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

We need a parent’s signature.

We need to look at the other parent’s fingerprints. 

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

This is John’s house.

We need to look after John’s plant.

Parents’ 

Parents’ is the plural possessive form of parents. 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 parents’ house.

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

Is it parent’s or parents’ anniversary?

Parents’ anniversary is correct because it is the wedding anniversary of both parents. 

Is it a parent’s or parents’ signature?

Parent’s is correct if you only need one signature,

We need a parent’s signature.

Parents’ is correct if you need both signatures.

We need the parents’ signatures

 

Conor
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