Every

We useevery+ singular noun to refer individually to all the members of a complete group of something:

There’s a photograph on the wall ofeverychild in the school.

Try to answereveryquestion.

Wheneveryrefers to the subject of the clause, we use a singular verb:

Everyplayer wants to be in a winning team.

Not:Every player want…

Everycook needs good knives and a chopping board.

The negative ofeveryis normallynot every:

Not everynoun has a plural form.

We use singular pronouns and possessives to refer back toevery+ noun, especially in more formal styles, and especially when what we refer to is not human:

Every storehas a manager in charge ofit.

Every areahas its own park.

In less formal styles, the pronoun or possessive may be plural:

Every studentgets a laptop. They have to give it back at the end of the course.

Every userhas their own password.

We useeverywith a singular noun to refer to something that happens regularly:

The festival is heldevery Augustin Budapest.

I leave the houseevery morningat 6 am.

Not:I leave the house every mornings at 6 am.

We useeverywith a number and a plural noun to refer to regular intervals of time or numbers:

There are buses into townevery ten minutes.

He now works from home, travelling to Amsterdamevery two weeks.

We often usesinglewitheveryto emphasise each member of a complete group of people or things:

He was the only player who played inevery singlematch last season.

I’ve got to photocopyevery singlepage.

We useevery one, written as two words, to refer back to a noun we have already mentioned:

I received more than a hundred letters from him while I was away and I’ve keptevery one.

Everyone, written as one word, means ‘every person’:

Everyoneenjoyed themselves.

We useevery one ofbefore pronouns and determiners:

There are 107 two-letter words in the dictionary and John Catto, an Aberdeen lorry driver, knowsevery one ofthem.

When Jenkins joined the bank, one of his first acts was to makeevery one ofthe bank’s employees reapply for their jobs.

We useevery otherto mean ‘alternate’:

We workedevery otherSunday.(One Sunday he worked, the next Sunday he didn’t work, the next Sunday he worked, etc.)

He works in Germanyevery otherweek.(One week he works in Germany, the next week he doesn’t, the next week he does, etc.)

• We don’t useeveryon its own, without a noun or withoutone:

There were five rooms.Every roomwas decorated in a different style.

Not:Every was decorated in a different style.

• We don’t useeverywith a plural noun:

I go swimmingeveryday.

Not:I go swimming every days.