Let's

How to spell let's

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce let's

What does let's mean?

1. verbA contraction of 'let us', used to suggest that the speaker and others do something together.

Let's in a sentence

• Let's meet for coffee before the meeting starts.

• Let's split the bill evenly between the four of us.

Where does let's come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a contraction of the phrase 'let us', combining the verb 'let' with a shortened form of the pronoun 'us'. The verb 'let' descends from the Old English lætan, which meant 'to allow, to permit, or to leave behind', and it traces further back to a Germanic root shared with related words across the older Germanic languages. The 'us' element comes from Old English us, the object form of 'we'. Used together, 'let us' originally carried the literal sense of granting permission, but over centuries it softened into a friendly way of proposing that a group do something together. The apostrophe in 'let's' marks the missing letter of 'us', exactly as it does in 'it's' for 'it is'; that single mark is the whole spelling trap, because 'lets' without it is the ordinary present-tense verb 'he lets her in'.

How the word is built

• let (allow, from Old English lætan)
• 's (contracted form of 'us')