ITS

Etymology

Determiner

its

Belonging to it. [from 16th c.]

Contraction

its

Misspelling of it's.

Pronoun

its

The one (or ones) belonging to it. [from 17th c.]

Usage notes

• In practice, its is commonly used as a determiner before a noun, but its use as a solo pronoun is generally avoided.

• Its is now distinguished from it's (a contraction of "it is" or "it has"). For example, It's going to rain is equivalent to It is going to rain, and It's been raining for hours is equivalent to It has been raining for hours. However, the two are commonly confused, and using its where there should be it's (or vice versa) is a common mistake in written English.

• Like it, its is usually avoided when referring to humans. Its is commonly used with animals when the gender is unknown or unimportant. With humans, person is used for a person whose gender is unknown or to refer to something that could be possessed by either gender, body or corpse is often used to refer to a dead person, and figure, shape, and silhouette are often used to refer to what someone sees as a person but can't see clearly enough to determine an identity or gender, e.g. The figure moved behind a bush, but Josh could see its shadow from the moonlight.