The apostrophe ( ’ although often rendered as ' ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves three purposes:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word comes ultimately from Greek ἡ ἀπόστροφος [προσῳδία] (hē apóstrophos [prosōidía], "[the accent of] 'turning away', or elision"), through Latin and French.
The apostrophe usually looks the same as a closing single quotation mark, although they have different meanings. The apostrophe also looks similar to the prime symbol ( ′ ), which is used to indicate measurement in feet or arcminutes, as well as for various mathematical purposes, and the ʻokina ( ʻ ), which represents a glottal stop in Polynesian languages.
The apostrophe was introduced into English in the 16th century in imitation of French practice.
Introduced by Geoffroy Tory (1530), the apostrophe was used in place of a vowel letter to indicate elision (as in l'heure in place of la heure). It was frequently used in place of letter e when no actual vowel sound was elided (as in un' heure). Modern French orthography has restored the spelling une heure.
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