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I have the following sentence:

Joe got everyone's attention and started to speak.

Should it be everyone's, everyones' or everyones?

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  • Good question. This is not answerable using Wiktionary (they don't have those words).
    – Peter Mortensen
    Nov 25, 2015 at 20:06

2 Answers 2

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53

As Robusto says, you should use everyone’s. Neither everyones’ nor everyones is a word.

Note that everyone is always singular and cannot be pluralized, which means everyones is incorrect. If everyones were a word, everyones’ would be the possessive form of everyones, but since everyones is incorrect, everyones’ is also incorrect.

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  • 1
    +1 for since everyones is incorrect everyones' is also incorrect
    – Rookie Programmer Aravind
    Dec 2, 2010 at 5:04
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    Thank you 🙏 could you add what the ‘s stands for? Is it is or us(Like let’s is for let us)? And how to make sense out of it? Saying both Joe got everyone is attention or Joe got everyone us attention don’t make much sense to me.
    – Coding Edgar
    Jan 3, 2020 at 12:04
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    @CodingEdgar It's a possessive "s", as in "Fred's house", "Joe's dog" - it indicates 'belonging to'.
    – TrevorD
    Feb 25, 2020 at 23:35
  • I'm happy with this answer but why, Why?!, and perhaps who, decided everyones is not a valid word?
    – AJP
    Oct 14, 2021 at 18:57
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It should be everyone's.

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