What ' means
It can end your quoted text too early.
In Python and JavaScript, 'don't' closes at the apostrophe inside the word. Write 'don\'t' or "don't" instead: the backslash protects the internal mark, or double quotes surround the text.
Ordinary punctuation; misplaced apostrophes make edited writing look careless.
Don't add an apostrophe just to make an ordinary English noun plural.
Part of collections
Don't confuse it with
6
Right Single Quotation Mark
Curly apostrophe used in typeset prose. It is a different character, not a substitute for straight quote delimiters in Python or JavaScript.
Grave Accent
Backtick, not an apostrophe; it has separate programming and markup roles.
Left Single Quotation Mark
An opening quotation mark. Autocorrect often wrongly puts it in ‘90s, which needs an apostrophe.
Prime
Prime marks feet or minutes, as in 5′ 10″; it is not an apostrophe.
Modifier Letter Apostrophe
Modifier letter apostrophe counts as a letter, used inside words in languages such as Ukrainian; it looks like ’.
Acute Accent
An accent mark. Typing don´t with it is a common slip on European keyboards.
Related characters
1
Combination ideas
4Shortened form of cannot.
Shortened form of it is or it has.
The bowl belongs to the cat.
The nineties; the apostrophe stands for the missing 19.
Questions people ask
1Why does ' show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
16
❝Heavy Double Turned Comma Quotation Mark Ornament
❞Heavy Double Comma Quotation Mark Ornament
″Double Prime
⍘APL Functional Symbol Quote Underbar
⠄Braille Pattern Dots-3
ʹModifier Letter Prime
ʼModifier Letter Apostrophe𑇁Sharada Sign Avagraha
%Percent Sign
&Ampersand
(Left Parenthesis
‘Left Single Quotation Mark
’Right Single Quotation Mark
‚Single Low-9 Quotation Mark
¡Inverted Exclamation Mark
§Section SignCollections with '
7
How to type or find '
- Also called
- single quote · straight quote · typewriter apostrophe
- Search it as
- apostrophe s
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
'
HTML hex
'
CSS content
content: "\0027";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
'
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
1
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.