its

Etymology

It is formed from English it + -'s,^[2][3][4][5] and was at first commonly written it's.^[4][6][7] The revised OED takes it as probably that formation only in part, and in part as a variant of the possessive use of the bare pronoun, remodelled with the genitive ending.^[8] The pronoun is from Old English hit, from the demonstrative base Proto-Germanic *khi-,^[4][9] from Proto-Indo-European *ko- (“this”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of it, belonging to it, modifying a noun: 1577, in a work by R. Robinson.^[8][10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives about 1507,^[11] Dictionary.com 1590–1600,^[6] and Etymonline and Ayto the late 16th century.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the genitive of both he and the neuter pronoun was his, so that this form also served for "its".^[8][9][12] Etymonline suggests that the clash between grammatical and natural gender, or the use of one form for people and for things, made speakers uncomfortable, and in Middle English his was increasingly kept for the masculine.^[4] The replacements included of it and thereof,^[4][8] and the bare it as a possessive, dated about 1300 in Etymonline, 14th to 17th century in Hoad and about 1400 in the Historical Thesaurus.^[4][9][10] From the late 16th century its spread quickly in writing,^[8] and it replaced neuter his about 1600,^[4] though literary his went on into the 17th century.^[4][8] The Bible of 1611 still has no its: it uses thereof, and once the bare form, "of it own accord", which an edition of 1660 altered to its.^[8][1][4] The apostrophe, as in to it's end in Florio's Montaigne, corresponded to the genitive of nouns, as with ours and yours; some writers kept it until the early 19th century.^[1][8][4] Etymonline suggests that it was lost because it's was already established for "it is", or through the habit of dropping apostrophes in personal pronouns.^[4] Since the 19th century the spelling it's has been considered nonstandard, though it remains common.^[8]

Timeline

• 1577 – modifying a noun.^[8]
• 1622 – before a verbal noun or gerund.^[8]
• 1623 – as a possessive pronoun, in Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII (rare).^[8]
• 1660 – its replaces the bare possessive in an edition of the 1611 Bible.^[8]
• 19th century – the spelling it's comes to be considered nonstandard.^[8]

Meanings

Determiner

1. Belonging to or connected with a thing already named or obvious from the situation: The kite lost its tail.^{[13][14][11][8]}
2. Belonging to a child or animal whose sex is not specified: The foal stood up beside its mother.^[13][14]
3. Showing that the thing named is the doer or subject of an action, including before a gerund: The bridge is old, and its closing surprised nobody.^[11][8]

Pronoun

1. (rare) The one or ones belonging to it.^{[8][3][11][15]}

Related words

• it
• his
• it's
• itself
• hers
• theirs

Usage notes

The possessive its takes no apostrophe, and it's is the contraction of "it is" or "it has"; the dictionaries single out the confusion of the two as a common error.^{[2][14][13][6]} The error comes from the apostrophe of noun possessives, but its behaves like his and hers.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged records its for it's as substandard.^[11] Dictionary.com calls the use as a pronoun or a predicate rare and usually strained.^[6] How often its is used rather than of it varies by region: in Scots, for example, of it is the more common construction.^[8] Scots and Irish dialects had its lane or its lone for "alone, by itself".^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)