Secretaries or Secretary’s or Secretaries’? (Easy Guide)

The possessive form of “secretary” is fairly easy to understand. You might find yourself needing to use it in your writing, so we’ve put this article together to explain the best ways to get it right.

Secretaries or Secretary’s or Secretaries’: Which Is The Correct Possessive Form?

“Secretary’s” is the correct possessive form for “secretary.” We use it to talk about one “secretary” owning an object. We could also use “secretaries’,” though the cases are much less common. This is the plural possessive form, used to talk about multiple “secretaries” at once.

The possessive forms of most regular nouns are fairly easy to learn. We don’t need to worry too much about the apostrophes and letters after the words when they follow standard forms.

The forms you need to watch for are:

Singular	Secretary
Plural	Secretary’s
Singular possessive	Secretaries
Plural possessive	Secretaries’

Luckily, “secretary” is a regular noun. This makes learning the possessive forms much less complicated than some other instances.

We can add an “‘s” to the end of the singular form to create “secretary’s.” This is the most logical way to write the singular possessive form for most nouns in English.

We can also add an apostrophe to the end of the plural form to create “secretaries’.” This again is the most logical way to use the plural possessive form since “secretaries” already end with an “S,” so the extra letter would be redundant.

Secretaries

“Secretaries” refers to more than one “secretary.” This is the plural form, which is the easiest form we’ll mention in this article.

We can use “secretaries” when talking about more than one object (the object being “secretary”). It works only to talk about them, and no possessions or objects come after “secretaries” in this way.

Technically, “secretaries” have nothing to do with the possessive form demonstrated in this article. Still, we think it helps to understand the plural form before tackling some of the possessive forms we’ll mention in the following sections.

1. Many secretaries applied to work here, but only you made the cut.
2. This isn’t a place where secretaries can gather without issue.
3. There are three secretaries on the shortlist that I think we should consider.
4. The secretaries in this building are all very unhelpful!
5. I need more secretaries if I’m going to make my workload easier to cope with!

We only use “secretaries” as the plural form. This means that more than one “secretary” is written about. There is never a mention of possession in this form.

Secretary’s

“Secretary’s” is the singular possessive form. This works when only one “secretary” owns an object, and it’s the most common possessive form to come across.

We can use “secretary’s” when only one subject owns an object. We place the object directly after “secretary’s” when we want to show what it is they own.

Typically, when writing it as a singular possessive word, we would add an “‘s” to the end of a singular word.

As you can tell, those same rules are followed when using “secretary’s.” This shows that “secretary” is a uniform noun that follows all the expected rules we’re used to seeing.

1. My secretary’s calendar is filled with things that aren’t work-related!
2. You are my secretary’s understudy, and you must learn everything from him.
3. The secretary’s day off was coming up soon, and the boss needed to make sure they were ready.
4. The secretary’s salary was impressive when considering how little work they do in the company.
5. My secretary’s ambition is to hold my position in this company one day.

“Secretary’s” works as the singular possessive form. We use this when only one “secretary” owns an object in a sentence. We place the object directly after the singular form to show what is owned by that secretary.

Secretaries’

“Secretaries'” is the plural possessive form. We can use this when multiple “secretaries” own an object, and it would help to understand more about it.

“Secretaries'” works best when multiple “secretaries” own an object or group of similar objects. We can place the object directly after the plural possessive form to show what is owned.

Like other plural possessive forms, “secretaries'” follow standard trends. We simply add an apostrophe to the end of the word because it already ends with an “S.” This is how we identify the plural possessive form.

1. The secretaries’ wages are much greater than the rest of the employees.
2. Those secretaries’ duties aren’t much when you look at them comparatively.
3. Many of the secretaries’ jobs are held in the balance, waiting for the boss to tell them what will happen.
4. There are many secretaries’ jobs out there, and it would help for you to look into them.
5. We should find those secretaries’ diaries before the end of the week. Where did they save them?

“Secretaries'” is the correct plural possessive form. As you can see, it refers to multiple “secretaries” owning an object or group of similar objects in a sentence. In this case, the object comes directly after the noun, just like with the singular possessive form.

Quiz: Have You Mastered Secretaries or Secretary’s or Secretaries’?

Now that we’ve seen all we need to about “church” and its possessive forms, it’s time for a quick quiz. We’ll throw some questions at you, and you can answer them by comparing what you’ve written to the section that comes after this one.

1. I need to hire three (A. secretaries / B. secretary’s / C. secretaries’) for the boss before the week ends.
2. The (A. secretaries / B. secretary’s / C. secretaries’) diary isn’t very well-organized.
3. Those (A. secretaries / B. secretary’s / C. secretaries’) uniforms aren’t particularly professional.
4. Many (A. secretaries / B. secretary’s / C. secretaries’) have decided to quit this job in the past.
5. The (A. secretaries / B. secretary’s / C. secretaries’) wage is much more impressive than mine.

Quiz answers

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. A
5. B

Final Thoughts

We can use both “secretary’s” and “secretaries'” as the correct possessive forms of the noun “secretary.” The only difference between them comes with the amount of “secretaries” we write about. The singular form is “secretary’s,” and the plural form is “secretaries’.”

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