It's

How to spell it's

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce it's

What does it's mean?

1. otherA contraction of 'it is' or 'it has', where the apostrophe marks the omitted letters.

It's in a sentence

• It's going to rain later this afternoon.

• I think it's time to go home.

• It's been a long day.

• It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?

• It's raining cats and dogs.

Where does it's come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a contraction, the squeezing together of the pronoun 'it' with a following 'is' or 'has', with the apostrophe marking exactly where the missing letters were dropped. The pronoun 'it' descends from the Old English neuter pronoun 'hit', which lost its initial 'h' in unstressed positions over the medieval period. The contracted spelling 'it's' became common in the 1600s as writers increasingly recorded everyday speech rhythms on the page. Importantly, the apostrophe here is doing the same job it does in 'don't' or 'can't', signalling an omission, not possession; the possessive form 'its' deliberately carries no apostrophe, exactly as the possessives 'his' and 'hers' do not. That split is the entire spelling trap: 'it's' always unpacks into 'it is' or 'it has', while 'its' shows ownership.

How the word is built

• it
• 's (contracted "is" or "has")

Words that sound like it's

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• its: Belonging to or associated with a thing, animal, or idea previously mentioned.