You'll

How to spell you'll

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce you'll

What does you'll mean?

1. otherA contraction of 'you will' or 'you shall', expressing a future action or outcome.

You'll in a sentence

• If you leave now, you'll catch the early train.

• You'll find the report attached to the email.

Where does you'll come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a contraction of the pronoun 'you' and the auxiliary verb 'will' (or, more rarely, 'shall'). The pronoun 'you' descends from Old English 'eow', the object form of 'ge', meaning the people being addressed, while 'will' comes from Old English 'willan', meaning 'to wish' or 'to intend'. The apostrophe in 'you'll' marks exactly where the letters 'wi' of 'will' have been squeezed out, a written shorthand for the way the two words blur together in speech. Such contractions became common in writing from the seventeenth century onward as printers tried to capture casual spoken rhythm. The spelling trap is purely the apostrophe and the doubled 'l': the form sounds identical to the festive word 'yule', so the apostrophe is the only thing that signals the hidden verb.

How the word is built

• you (second person pronoun)
• 'll (contracted will/shall)