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Character  ' 
Unicode name APOSTROPHE
Unicode block Basic Latin
Codepoint U+0027
& ← Basic Latin → (
See also: and -'




  1. (apostrophe) or (leading apostrophe)
  2. or (both the opening and closing single quotation marks)
  3. ˈ (IPA primary stress)
  4. ʼ (IPA diacritic for ejective consonant)
  5. ׳ (Hebrew geresh)
  6. ʻ (Hawaiian okina).
  7. (mathematics) (prime symbol)
  8. ' (foot length unit symbol)

Related terms[edit]


See also[edit]



  1. Possessive marker sometimes used on singular nouns (names) which end in s, indicating than an object belongs to the noun bearing the marker.
    Jesus' disciples
    Chris' cake recipe

Usage notes[edit]

  • Traditionally, the possessives of classical and Biblical names ending in s, such as Archimedes and Jesus, were written without a final “s”, i.e. the possessives were formed using bare '.
    • Archimedes’ Principle (the principle of Archimedes)
    • Jesus’ disciples (the disciples of Jesus)
This is to be distinguished from s': the teachers' faces = the faces of the teachers, plural.
  • In modern English, this practice may be extended to all names ending in s, i.e. both "Chris' recipe" and "Chris's recipe" may be found:
    • 2009, Karen Hitchcock, Little White Slips (ISBN 1466826851):
      Sam, the Lebanese milk bar man, followed Chris's recipe.
    • 2012, Jack Edward Shay, Bygone Binghamton: Remembering People and Places of the Past (ISBN 1467065021):
      That was Chris' recipe.
  • See also -'s.


Alternative forms[edit]

Punctuation mark[edit]


  1. Put before the declension suffix of a foreign name, if the preceding letter is silent.
    Harry'ego /xaˈrɛ.ɡɔ/genitive case of Harry
    Georges'em /ˈʐɔr.ʐɛm/instrumental case of Georges




' upper case (lower case ')

  1. The first letter of the Somali alphabet, called alef and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes[edit]

  1. The first letter of the Somali alphabet, which follows Arabic abjad order. It is followed by B.
  2. Rarely used in initial position.

See also[edit]