They're

How to spell they're

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce they're

What does they're mean?

1. pronounA contraction of 'they are', used when a plural subject is doing or being something.

They're in a sentence

• Look at the children, they're all having fun.

• They're going to be late if they don't hurry.

• They think that they're going to school but it's closed today.

• They're painting the kitchen yellow.

• I think they're a bit confused.

Where does they're come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is a contraction of the two words 'they are', formed by collapsing the verb 'are' down to a clipped '-re' and marking the loss with an apostrophe. The pronoun 'they' is itself a borrowing into English from Old Norse, where the word 'their', plural 'they', replaced the older native Old English form 'hie' during the Middle Ages, one of the rare cases where English took a basic everyday pronoun from the Scandinavian settlers. The apostrophe convention for contractions became settled in writing during the 1600s and 1700s, when printers used it to flag a dropped letter. Because 'they're', 'their', and 'there' all came to sound identical when spoken quickly, they became one of the most notorious sets of confusables in English. The trick that keeps 'they're' distinct is its meaning: it always unpacks neatly into 'they are', which neither of the others can do.

How the word is built

• they
• 're (contracted "are")

Words that sound like they're

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

• their: Belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned.
• there: In, at, or to that place; also used as a dummy subject to assert that something exists or happens.