Word.ws English Dictionary

greengrocers' apostrophe

greengrocers' apostrophe is the nonstandard 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 greengrocers' apostrophe

pluralgreengrocers' apostrophes

Questions about greengrocers' apostrophe

What is greengrocers' apostrophe the nonstandard form of?
Greengrocers' apostrophe is the nonstandard form of greengrocer's apostrophe.

Words near greengrocers' apostrophe in the dictionary

  1. greengroceresses
  2. greengroceries
  3. greengrocers
  4. greengrocers apostrophe's
  5. greengrocers'
  6. greengrocers' apostrophe
  7. greengrocers' apostrophes
  8. greengrocery
  9. greengrocing
  10. Greengross
  11. Greengrosses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greengrocers' 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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