Word.ws English Dictionary

greengrocer's-apostrophe

greengrocer's-apostrophe is the archaic form of greengrocer's apostrophe.

Meaning of greengrocer's apostrophe

Noun

greengrocer's apostrophe (plural greengrocer's apostrophes or (humorous) greengrocers apostrophe's)

  1. An incorrectly used apostrophe; (especially) one mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun, for example: writing the plural of banana as banana's (a possessive) instead of bananas.
    • [A] flashing neon sign advertising the Pari's Hotel is less an early case of greengrocer's apostrophe than a sardonic Pascalian allusion (pari in French meaning 'bet').1993, British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Film Review

Forms of greengrocer's-apostrophe

pluralgreengrocer's-apostrophes

Questions about greengrocer's-apostrophe

What is greengrocer's-apostrophe the archaic form of?
Greengrocer's-apostrophe is the archaic form of greengrocer's apostrophe.

Words near greengrocer's-apostrophe in the dictionary

  1. Greengrasses
  2. greengrocer
  3. greengrocer's
  4. greengrocer's apostrophe
  5. greengrocer's apostrophes
  6. greengrocer's-apostrophe
  7. greengrocer's-apostrophes
  8. greengroceress
  9. greengroceresses
  10. greengroceries
  11. greengrocers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greengrocer's-apostrophe (page history and authors); greengrocer's apostrophe (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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Cite this entry: “greengrocer's-apostrophe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/greengrocer%27s-apostrophe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.