Let's or lets?
let's is a verb meaning “Used to form the cohortative of verbs, equivalent of the first-person plural…”; lets is a verb meaning “third-person singular simple present indicative of let”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) let's is about 4.5 times as common as lets.
What is the difference between let's and lets?
| let's | lets | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | noun, verb, suffix |
| Meaning | Used to form the cohortative of verbs, equivalent of the first-person plural imperative in some other languages Used to form the hortative of verbs, equivalent of the second-person plural imperative in some other languages, chiefly instructional | |
| Example | Let’s eat lunch sometime, shall we? | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /lɛts/ | /lɛts/ |
| In writing | 145 times per million words | 32 times per million words |
Sources: let's and lets in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of let's and lets
let's
- 1
Used to form the cohortative of verbs, equivalent of the first-person plural imperative in some other languages
Let’s eat lunch sometime, shall we?
- 2
Used to form the hortative of verbs, equivalent of the second-person plural imperative in some other languages, chiefly instructional
Let’s make sure we don’t forget proper punctuation, let's not let those mistakes happen again
lets
- 1
Initialism of local exchange trading system
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, let's or lets?
let's appears 145 times per million words; lets 32 times per million words.
let's 145 times per million wordslets 32 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search let's vs lets?
“let's vs lets” is searched about 6,600 times a month on Google and 80 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“lets vs let's”, “let's or lets”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.