They've
verbA shortened form of 'they have', used to say that a group possesses something or has done something.
How to spell they've
6 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce they've
What does they've mean?
- verbA shortened form of 'they have', used to say that a group possesses something or has done something.
They've in a sentence
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They've already paid the deposit on the flat.
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The neighbours said they've got a spare key for emergencies.
Where does they've come from?
Language of origin: Old Norse
This is a contraction of 'they have', joining the pronoun 'they' with the verb 'have'. The pronoun 'they' is itself a borrowing from Old Norse 'their', which Norse settlers brought to England and which gradually replaced the native Old English plural pronoun 'hie' during the medieval period. The verb 'have' descends from Old English 'habban', meaning 'to hold or possess', a word with deep Germanic roots. The fused written form with an apostrophe became common from the seventeenth century onward, when contractions spread in informal and then printed English. The apostrophe stands in for the missing letters 'ha' of 'have', and forgetting that mark, or confusing it with the spelling 'they', is the usual trap for writers.
How the word is built
- they (third-person plural pronoun)
- 've (contracted form of 'have')
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