The term day’s is the singular possessive form of day. E.g., “We only have a day’s worth of food left.” Furthermore, days’ is the plural possessive form. E.g., “We only have 2 days’ worth of food left.” Also, the word days is the regular plural. E.g., “I would like a few days off work.”
The term days has several different forms, which the following table illustrates.
| Singular | Day |
| Plural | Days |
| Singular possessive | Day’s |
| Plural possessive | Days’ |
As you can see, you form the plural by adding “s” to the end of day. In addition, you make the singular possessive form by adding an apostrophe and an “s” to the word day. Also, you can make the plural possessive of day by adding an “s” followed by an apostrophe.
Here are some examples that show each of the forms of day in context.
- Singular: My favorite day of the week is Friday.
- Plural: He hadn’t eaten anything for three days when rescuers found him.
- Singular possessive: I only need to give a day’s notice if I want a vacation from work.
- Plural possessive: He had several days’ worth of water when he set off.
As the examples show, you can only use the singular possessive to refer to one day possessing something.
However, in the plural possessive form, you can refer to several days possessing something or to more than one day’s worth of something.
Figuring out the correct version of the word day to use in your sentences is important. Hence, you should read the rest of the page to learn more about using each form.
Day’s
The term day’s is the singular possessive form of day. Therefore, you can use it to say something belongs to a day.
A common situation in which you use this form is to refer to events taking place on a particular day.
- We canceled that day’s event because nobody could make it.
Furthermore, you can use the word day’s to refer to a day’s time or a day’s worth of something.
- I will call you in a day’s time to confirm my arrival.
- I have a day’s worth of emails to answer.
In these examples, it is essential to remember that you can only use day’s to refer to one day.
Therefore, more often than not, you will use the words a, the, or one before day’s. However, if the number you put before day’s is greater than one, you must use days’ instead.
Days’
The word days’ is the plural possessive of the word day. Therefore, you use it when you want to say that something belongs to multiple days.
A typical usage for the word days’ is to refer to events that occur over several days.
- All the days’ schedules are fully booked, so we cannot accept new patients.
Another common way you use the word days’ is to refer to several days’ worth of something or several days’ time before something happens.
- He has ten days’ worth of work to catch up on after his vacation.
- We will have a definite answer in several days’ time when we get the results.
For examples such as the ones above, you will always have either a plural number before days’ or another plural quantifier such as many or several.
Days
The word days is the standard plural version of the word day. Therefore, you can use it when you want to talk about several days simultaneously and when the sentence is not possessive.
The plural version of the word day can refer to a specific number of days.
- I think the decorating will take around four days.
Furthermore, you can use the word days to refer to an unspecified number of days.
- The days in winter seem so short in comparison to those in summer.