Let's

//lɛts// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    Used to form the cohortative of verbs, equivalent of the first-person plural imperative in some other languages.

    "Let’s eat lunch sometime, shall we?"

  2. 2
    Used to form the hortative of verbs, equivalent of the second-person plural imperative in some other languages, chiefly instructional

    "Let’s make sure we don’t forget proper punctuation, let's not let those mistakes happen again."

Example

More examples

"Let's consider the worst that could happen."

Etymology

Contraction of let us. Compare non-contracted Dutch laat ons, German lass uns (speaker with one other person) / lasst uns (speaker with more other persons) and Swedish låt oss.

Related phrases

let's be having youlet's dancelet's get the party startedlet's get this circus on the roadlet's get this party startedlet's golet's have itlet's hear it for someonelet's knowlet's not and say we didlet's playlet's roll

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