- the sign ('), as used: to indicate the omission of one or more letters in a word, whether unpronounced, as in o'er for over, or pronounced, as in gov't for government; to indicate the possessive case, as in man's; or to indicate plurals of abbreviations and symbols, as in several M.D.'s, 3's.
- a digression in the form of an address to someone not present, or to a personified object or idea, as “O Death, where is thy sting?”
- the punctuation mark ' used to indicate the omission of a letter or number, such as he's for he has or he is, also used in English to form the possessive, as in John's father and twenty pounds' worth
- a digression from a discourse, esp an address to an imaginary or absent person or a personification
