What are Plural Possessive Nouns and a Practice Test

This lesson is all about plural possessive nouns. While it might sound like a difficult subject, it is very similar to what we learned before about singular possessive nouns.  The primary difference is that this time the item will be the possession of many people, many places, or many things.

For singular possessive nouns we added an apostrophe and the letter “s” to the noun (Chris’s phone). However, it is a little more difficult for plural possessive nouns because they often already end in “s”. Adding another “s” even after an apostrophe looks odd.

For example, “boys” is a plural noun and, if you wanted to use a possessive, “boys’s” doesn’t work. Instead you will just add the apostrophe alone.  The plural possessive would be written as boys’ as in “The boys’ toys are in their room.”

Sometimes a plural noun does not end in an “s”.  These irregular plurals do get the apostrophe and “s” like a singular noun. For example, the word “children” is plural (more than one child) but it doesn’t end in “s” so that the plural possessive would be “children’s”.  In a sentence, this would be “The children’s toys are in the playroom.”

Girls’

Dogs’

Wolves’

Babies’

Children’s

Mice’s

Men’s

People’s

This sentence “The prey of the wolves was just ahead of them” is technically correct but it looks terrible.  A better way to write this using the plural possessive. “The wolves’ prey was just ahead of them” and because the noun “wolves” is a plural that ends in “s” you only need to add an apostrophe to show that it is possessive.

What about this sentence? “The parachutes of the men opened at the last second.” In this case, the parachutes are owned by more than one man.  “Men” is an irregular plural so to show possession the apostrophe and “s” can be added.  The sentence becomes “The men’s parachutes opened at the last second.”

Plural possessive nouns are used for the same reason that singular possessive nouns are used, to show that someone or something owns another thing.  The difference being that with plural possess then more than one person, place or thing owns something. Let’s practice this with some sample sentences. Rewrite each sentence fragment to use a plural possessive noun.

1. The pens the teachers have.
2. The names of the people.
3. The hammers of the workers.
4. The shoes of the runners.
5. The balls of the basketball team.
6. The crayons of the students.

In the first sentence, the teachers all have pens.  Teachers already ends with “s” so that the plural possessive becomes “The teachers’ pens.”

For the second sentence, people is an irregular plural and you can add an apostrophe and “s” to show possession. “The people’s names.”

The third sentence becomes “The workers’ hammers” and the fourth is “The runners’ shoes”.  In both of these sentences the plural noun already ends in “s” so that only an apostrophe is needed.

The fifth sentence contains another irregular plural, the basketball team.  This time both the apostrophe and the “s” are needed to become “The basketball team’s balls.”

Finally, the sixth sentence contains another plural noun, students, that ends in an “s”.  “The students’ crayons” is the correct format to use.