A variant of -es¹, inflectional ending of the plurals of nouns, attached to nouns not ending in a sibilant or an affricate: books, words, cars. It is pronounced (s) after a voiceless consonant, and (z) after a voiced consonant or a vowel.

An inflectional ending used to form the third person singular present indicative of verbs not ending in a sibilant, affricate, or vowel: reads, walks, sings. Compare -ES².

On; of a; at: often used in adverbs without appreciable force: nights, Mondays, always, towards. [OE -es, genitive ending]

An inflectional ending used to form the possessive of singular nouns and of plural nouns not ending in -s: a man's world, women's fashions. In plurals ending in -s (or -es) a simple apostrophe is used as a sign of the possessive: a girls' school, the churches' steeples, the Joneses' claim to the inheritance.

Contraction of:
1. Is: He's here.
2. Has: She's left.
3. Us: Let's go.