yesterdayvsyesterdaysWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“yesterday” and “yesterdays” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,325
“yesterday” frequency rank
#49,734
“yesterdays” frequency rank
51059
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature yesterday yesterdays
Definition The day immediately before today; one day ago. plural of yesterday.

Letter map: yesterday vs yesterdays

Shared letters muted; letters that set yesterday and yesterdays apart highlighted. Shared run: 9.

9 ch
yesterday
10 ch
yesterdays

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

yesterday and yesterdays are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “yesterday” sits inside “yesterdays”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51059, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

yesterday is recorded at frequency rank #1,325, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈjɛstədeɪ/. yesterdays is at rank #49,734, tagged as anoun.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 51059, this pair ranks #168,749 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of yesterday vs yesterdays

Shared letters: adersty. Private to "yesterday": -. Private to "yesterdays": -.

"yesterday" · 9 letters · shape VVCCVCCVV  ·  "yesterdays" · 10 letters · shape VVCCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • yesterdayeysterday · yesetrday · yessterday · yestedray · yesterady · yesterdayy · yesterdday · yesterdya
  • yesterdayseysterdays · yesetrdays · yessterdays · yestedrays · yesteradys · yesterdasy · yesterdayss · yesterdayys

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "yesterday" and "yesterdays" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “yesterday” sits inside “yesterdays”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "yesterday" or "yesterdays"?
"yesterday" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,325 in our English list, against #49,734 for "yesterdays". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list