Usage Contextgeneralgrammar-risk

Note: Contraction only: "it is" or "it has".

It's

//ɪts// contraction, det

contraction, det ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Contraction
  1. 1
    Contraction of it + is. abbreviation, alt-of, contraction

    "it’s too expensive; it’s coming right for us!; it's a free country"

  2. 2
    Contraction of it + has. abbreviation, alt-of, contraction

    "It’s been a long time since I’ve had cheesecake."

  3. 3
    Contraction of it + was. abbreviation, alt-of, contraction, proscribed

    "It’s the same stoneground flour from this week that we used to make last week's strudel."

  4. 4
    There's, there is; there're, there are. contraction, dialectal

    "it's a fine line between love and hate; it's a package for you by the door"

Determiner
  1. 1
    Obsolete form of its. alt-of, obsolete

    "The manner wherewith our Lawes assay to moderate the foolish and vaine expences of table-cheare and apparell, seemeth contrarie to it’s end."

  2. 2
    Misspelling of its. alt-of, misspelling

    "After being open only a few short weeks, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza is closing it's doors."

Synonyms

All synonyms
'tistis’tis’twas

Example

More examples

"It's because you don't want to be alone."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Contraction of ‘it is’, ‘it has’ or 'it was'.

Etymology 2

From it + -’s (possessive marker).

Related phrases

there arethere is

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.