Word.ws English Dictionary

apostrophectomy

apostrophectomy noun: the removal of incorrect apostrophes, especially those wrongly used to form plurals (greengrocer's apostrophes).

Noun

apostrophectomy (plural apostrophectomies)

  1. The removal of incorrect apostrophes, especially those wrongly used to form plurals (greengrocer's apostrophes).
    • apostrophectomy is a famously painful procedure, and the rate of reinfection is very high. there are also many attested cases where a perfectly functional apostrophe was inappropriately excised.2000 March 30, Arnold Zwicky, “Re: I'm *famous*”, in soc.motss (Usenet), retrieved 07 Mar 2017, message-ID <8bvtf0$p7d@Turing.Stanford.EDU>
    • Apostrophectomy might not be pleasant but I don't think it's illegal.2004 June 13, David, “Re: The World Quiz League, it's rolling”, in alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe (Usenet), retrieved 07 Mar 2017, message-ID <4cbe87bc27david@dacha.freeuk.com>

Forms of apostrophectomy

pluralapostrophectomies

Origin of apostrophectomy

From apostrophe + -ectomy.

Questions about apostrophectomy

What does apostrophectomy mean?
Apostrophectomy means the removal of incorrect apostrophes, especially those wrongly used to form plurals (greengrocer's apostrophes).
What part of speech is apostrophectomy?
Apostrophectomy is a noun.
What is the plural of apostrophectomy?
The plural of apostrophectomy is apostrophectomies.

Words near apostrophectomy in the dictionary

  1. apostrophal
  2. apostrophation
  3. apostrophations
  4. apostrophe
  5. apostrophectomies
  6. apostrophectomy
  7. apostrophed
  8. apostropheless
  9. apostrophes
  10. apostrophi
  11. apostrophic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: apostrophectomy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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