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Language tip of the week: every one or everyone?

In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. Here is some advice about  every one and everyone, as well as other pronouns starting with every:

Don’t confuse every one (two words) and everyone (one word):



✗ It is useful for every one to watch the news.
✓ It is useful for everyone to watch the news.

Every one means ‘each one’:

The government signed 453 treaties with the Native Americans and broke every one.

Everyone has the same meaning as everybody, and means ‘all people’.

Walking benefits everyone.

Every one is often followed by of:

It will require the support of every one of you.

Most of the pronouns that start with every are written as one word: everyone, everything, everybody, everywhere. The exception is every time, which is always written as two words:

✗ Having a child changes every thing in a couple’s life.
✓ Having a child changes everything in a couple’s life.
Everytime I see the prisoners, it reminds me of animals kept in captivity.
Every time I see the prisoners, it reminds me of animals kept in captivity.

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Liz Potter

Liz Potter

2 Comments

  • I appreciated this updated dictionary but got disappointed when I could not find ‘example sentences’ among the definitions, as we usually find in printed dictionaries
    These ‘examples sentences’ help us greatly to learn how to colocate the new word.

  • Hi Priscilla. I’m glad you like the dictionary.
    The example sentences are shown in blue and you can see them by clicking the ‘Show More’ button on the right of the screen. So if you look up ‘disappointed’ with ‘Show Less’ checked, you will see:
    unhappy because something that you hoped for or expected did not happen or because someone or something was not as good as you expected.
    But if you look at the Show More view, you get this:
    disappointed (that):
    She was disappointed that he never replied to her letter.
    disappointed at/by/about: Obviously, I feel very disappointed at not getting the job.
    disappointed in:I’m really disappointed in you, Ruth.
    bitterly disappointed (=extremely disappointed):
    Ireland were bitterly disappointed to end the competition with only two points.

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