Possessive Nouns

Possessive nouns are words that show something belongs to someone or something. It’s like when you say “my toy” to mean the toy that belongs to you. To make a noun possessive, we often add an apostrophe and an ‘s’ to the end of the word. For example, if the cat has a ball, you would say “the cat’s ball” to show that the ball belongs to the cat. This helps us understand who owns what!

Here are three examples demonstrating the use of possessive nouns, the ‘before’ sentences do not have possessive nouns and the ‘After’ sentences have the possessive nouns included:

Before: The book of the teacher is on the desk.
After: The teacher’s book is on the desk.

Before: The room of the children is upstairs.
After: The children’s room is upstairs.

Before: The collar of the dog is blue.
After: The dog’s collar is blue.

Now a longer sentence

Before: The car that belongs to John needs repairs.

After: John’s car needs repairs.

Here is a list of 20 possessive nouns that you could try to use to include in your writing.

Maria’s book
dog’s leash
teacher’s desk
bird’s nest
children’s toys
boss’s instructions
team’s uniform
friend’s house
player’s score
sister’s phone
uncle’s car
city’s park
company’s policy
government’s decision
school’s curriculum
chef’s recipe
author’s note
judge’s ruling
planet’s atmosphere
editor’s comments