Theirs

How to spell theirs

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce theirs

What does theirs mean?

1. pronounUsed to refer to something belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned.

Theirs in a sentence

• The neighbours parked in our spot, so we parked in theirs.

• Our garden is small, but theirs stretches all the way to the river.

Where does theirs come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word grew out of 'their', the possessive form of the pronoun 'they', which English borrowed from Old Norse 'þeir' and the genitive 'þeirra', brought over by Scandinavian settlers and gradually replacing the older Old English 'hira'. The independent possessive form 'theirs' was created by adding a final -s, on the same pattern that gave English 'hers', 'ours', and 'yours', a habit that began in the Middle English period around the 1300s and 1400s. It functions as an 'absolute' possessive, meaning it stands alone without a noun after it, unlike 'their' which always leans on a following word. Crucially, despite the trailing -s there is no apostrophe, because possessive pronouns never take one; the apostrophe is reserved for the unrelated contraction 'there's', meaning 'there is'. That spelling trap is the whole reason 'theirs' catches people: the ear hears the same sound as 'there's', but the grammar demands a clean -s with nothing else.

How the word is built

• their (possessive of 'they', from Old Norse 'þeirra')
• -s (possessive pronoun ending)

Words that sound like theirs

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

• there's: A contraction of 'there is' or 'there has', used to state that something exists or has happened.