Their? Their’s? Or is it theirs? Do you know which is correct?
There are actually two that are correct spellings and one that is an incorrect spelling.
Their is the possessive form of they. Their’s is a misspelling of theirs. Theirs is the plural form of their. Because their is already a possessive pronoun, there is no need to add an apostrophe and S after it. The S in theirs is for pluralizing their, not for making it possessive.
Below is how the pronouns relate to each other.
They (pronoun) → Their (possessive pronoun) → Theirs (plural possessive pronoun)
Notice how the misspelling their’s is nowhere in the picture. This is because it is incorrect and not a proper word or spelling in English.
Example sentences
Let us take a look at the difference between when to use their versus theirs.
Their
That day, the high schoolers partied like it was their last night.
The object of possession is last night and the possessors are the high schoolers. Their is a determiner that is always followed by object of possession.
The band took their instruments and practiced in the gym instead of the auditorium.
The instruments are the plural possessions of the band. Therefore, their precedes the possession instruments.
Did you know their textbooks are in German so they can learn German while studying math?
The subjects of the sentence own textbooks that are in German, so the word textbooks is preceded by the possessive their.
Theirs
I think they will take theirs to the park, so we don’t have to bring extra badminton rackets for them.
Unlike their, theirs is typically not followed by the possession in question. Rather, it is used more like a noun on its own. In the example above, the they in the sentence are bringing their own badminton rackets that they own to the park.
Everyone had taken a complimentary gift from the pile and turned to the twins because all was left was theirs.
The theirs in this sentence are the complimentary gifts of the twins. Notice that the possession in question does not come directly after theirs in the sentence. Instead, theirs itself is the placeholder of the possession.
The sophomores got their phones back before lunch, and the freshmen got back theirs after lunch.
The possessions in question in this example are the freshmen’s phones, which is represented by the plural possessive theirs in the sentence.
Their’s
Their’s is a misspelling. The proper spelling is theirs without an apostrophe.
Their, they’re, there
The three homophones their, they’re, and there are also commonly mixed up. Because of this, theirs and there’s are occasionally mistaken for one other because they are also pronounced the same. To clear the confusion, we broke down the differences below.
Their, they’re, there
- Their: possessive pronoun that is a determiner that shows possession
- They’re: contraction of they are
- There: denotes a place or position or used as an exclamation
Theirs, there’s
- Theirs: plural possessive pronoun of they
- There’s: contraction of there is
Practice questions
- Do you know if these socks are their/theirs?
- The teacher took their/theirs completed exams and started to grade them at his desk.
- Nathan wanted to know if their/theirs album was coming out in November or December.
- The group of student were checking which of the confiscated phones were there’s/theirs.
- Have you seen their/theirs newest film?
- The friend took their/theirs to the lake because they did not want to rent fishing rods there.
- The CEO talked to the PR team and later booked one-on-one meetings to get their/theirs opinions on the new direction of the company.
- I found that their/there sales events always start on a Thursday and end on a Sunday.
- The new restaurant down the street is pretty good, especially their/theirs butter lobster tails.
- That son of their/theirs moved to Europe to study culinary arts.
Answers
- theirs
- their
- their
- theirs
- their
- theirs
- their
- their
- their
- theirs
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