's

alternative ’s

1. abbreviationcliticcontractionContraction of is.

   The dog’s running after me!

2. abbreviationcliticcontractionContraction of has.

   The dog’s been chasing the mail carrier again.

3. Southern USabbreviationcliticcontractiondialectalproscribedContraction of was.

   It’s a beautiful day yesterday so I’s at the park.

4. abbreviationcliticcontractioninformalContraction of does, used only with the auxiliary meaning of does and only after interrogative words.

   What’s it say?

   5 more examples

   What’s he do for a living?

   What’s it mean? It means nothing.

   How’s it work?

   Where’s the n in Javanese come from?

   What the hell's he mean?

alternative ’s

1. abbreviationcolloquialcontractionpoeticContraction of it's.

   You wouldn’t blame your own dear boy! Your only one! ’S too bad.

   1933 August, H[enry] C[hristopher] Bailey, “The Lilies of St. Gabriel’s”, in Mr. Fortune Wonders, Garden City, N.Y.: […] [F]or the Crime Club, Inc., by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., →OCLC, page 97

   2 more examples

   By my troth’s not ſo good, and I vvarrant your coſin vvill ſay ſo.

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 112, column 2

   ’S that bloody comet. Thash what done it. Green shootin’ shtarsh—an’ now everyone’s blind’s a bat.

   1951, John Wyndham [pseudonym; John Wyndham Harris], “The End Begins”, in The Day of the Triffids, Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Crest, →OCLC, page 19

alternative ’s

1. abbreviationcliticcontractionContraction of us, found in the formula let's which is used to form first-person plural imperatives.

   What are you guys waiting for? Let’s go!

   1 more example

   Wee'le part the time betweene's then: and in that Ile no gaine-ſaying.

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 277, column 2

alternative ’s

1. abbreviationcontractionpoeticContraction of his.

   Duncan’s in’s grave

alternative ’s

1. UKabbreviationcontractiondialectalContraction of as, when it is (nonstandardly) used as a relative conjunction, or like a relative pronoun, meaning "that".

   All’s he wanted was to go home.

alternative ’s

1. UKabbreviationcontractiondialectalnot comparableContraction of as.

   I'd's lieves try my luck's I am. I'm smarter'n you'd think for.

   1921, Marion Ames Taggart, Poppy's Pluck, page 137

   2 more examples

   He takes his bottle of whisky a day and gets drunk’s a lord in the evening.

   1922, E. F. Benson, Negotium Perambulans

   ’S that bloody comet. Thash what done it. Green shootin’ shtarsh—an’ now everyone’s blind’s a bat.

   1951, John Wyndham [pseudonym; John Wyndham Harris], “The End Begins”, in The Day of the Triffids, Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Crest, →OCLC, page 19