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We had Thanksgiving dinner at the house of our neighbors.

  1. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the house of our neighbor's.
  2. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the house of our neighbors'.

Which one is correct?

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2 Answers 2

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Neither is correct; no apostrophe is needed with this construction. However, if you said '...at our neighbours' house', the apostrophe goes at the end if more than one person lives there, or before the 's' if the neighbour lives alone.

My neighbour's house (one person)

My neighbours' house (more than one)

The house of my neighbour

The house of my neighbours (more than one)

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The answer is 1. But please note that there is a basic syntax problem. You don't say both "of" and "’s", so the correct syntax is:

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbor’s house.

Or: We had Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbors’ house.

Or with “of”: We had Thanksgiving dinner at the house of our neighbors.

But it also depends on what you want to say:

  1. Refers to one specific family close or next to your home (probably this is what you mean)
  2. Refers to several people within that family, or more families living at the same house.
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    +1, though I would argue that it will most often be neighbours', since if you live next door to a couple or a family, they are your neighbours rather than your neighbour. You can't say John and Jill are our neighbour; you'd say John and Jill are our neighbours.
    – Dog Lover
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 6:33
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    Agreed, depends on context.
    – ib11
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 6:36
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    I disagree, the posessive s, whether singular or plural, is not needed where the word 'of' is present in the sentence. If we say "my neighbour's house" that is the same as saying "the house of my neighbour" so to say "the house of my neighbour's" is the same as saying "the house of of my neighbour". "The house of my neighbour's daughter" would make sense if the daughter had her own home but that is not what the question asked. See Kate Bunting's answer (or the answer of Kate Bunting).
    – BoldBen
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 10:56
  • @BoldBen Thanks, you are right. I assumed that the OP did not ask a trick question, so I answered on the meaning of 's versus s'. And ignored the double possessive. But you are correct, that the answer should cover it. I update the post now. Please un-downvote. Thanks.
    – ib11
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 6:11
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    I didn't downvote, I would have said if I had, it's probably a snotty drive-by. However I have up-voted to compensate for someone else's rudeness!
    – BoldBen
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 13:28

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