EACH & EVERY | English Grammar Lesson

EACH and EVERY

Which one is it then? Each or every? It’s pretty easy to confuse these two words. They look similar, they sound similar but they’re not always used in the same way.

So in this lesson, we’ll go over the subtle and important differences between these two words. We’ll talk about the different situations where you would use one or the other and of course, we’ll practise a little bit together later in the lesson. We really would love to make my lessons for you very practical so we’ll get to that later on.

Now, let’s get started!

Table of Contents

I) Each/ Every

‘Each’ and ‘every’ can both be used with singular nouns.

Every day
Every house
Each person
Each cat

All of these nouns are singular. It’s just one person or one thing. Therefore, the words ‘each’ and ‘every’ can be used with singular nouns that are part of a group but there is a subtle difference.

II) Each

When we use ‘each’, it emphasises or it puts more attention on the individual, the one person or the one thing.

Each person came to the dinner party brought a dish.

=> More than one person came to the dinner party. In fact, there was a whole group of people who came to the dinner party. But each singular individual person bought a dish or a plate of food to share. So he bought a dish, she bought dessert, she bought a salad, he bought some cheese and biscuits. So everyone has brought something.

III) Every

Now let’s compare this to ‘every’. ‘Every’ refers to a group of individual objects, or people as one group altogether. The attention is on the group as a whole.

Everyone who came to the dinner party brought a dish.

So a group of people came to the dinner party and all of these people brought a dish. However, by using ‘every’, we are putting emphasis on the group as a whole. Everybody here bought a dish.

Now in many situations, just like our above example about the dinner party, ‘each’ and ‘every’ can be used interchangeably with just a small difference in meaning. You could use either of them and the difference is very subtle.

But let’s look at a few more examples to help make that clear.

Every business owner is clever.

=> We are putting all business owners together in one group there and we are making a generalisation about the group – all business owners. And we are saying that as a group, all of those business owners are clever.

Each teacher at our school is creative.

=> Here we are talking about the individual teachers at our school, each one of them is creative. Not all teachers in general, not the group together, but each teacher separately at the school is creative.

IV) Everyone/ Every one

Before we move on, we want to point out something really important, something you might have been thinking about already.

But did you notice in my earlier examples that we wrote ‘everyone’ instead of ‘every one’?

So if you want to talk about a group of people as a whole, every person. It’s correct to use ‘every one’ or ‘every body’. Every person is every one or every body.

Now, ‘every one’ written in two words, it actually puts more attention on the individuals in the group and so it becomes a synonym closer to ‘each’, right?

Let’s think of an example.

At school, did you have a teacher that you were kind of scared of? Like imagine them saying:

Every one of you needs to arrive at 7 A.M tommorrow.
=> The emphasis is on the individual.

But if they said:

Everyone needs to arrive at 7 A.M tommorrow.
=> The emphasis is on the group. And it’s a little less scary.

It is a subtle difference but it’s quite powerful in meaning.

Notice as well that even though we’re talking about a group of people, ‘everyone’ and ‘everybody’ use a singular verb form because we’re talking about the group as a singular thing. Not all of the individuals in it but we’re talking about the group.

A nice trick to check if you should be using ‘everyone’ or ‘every one’ is to see if everybody works in that sentence because then ‘everyone’ with one word is also correct. If everybody doesn’t work in the sentence then ‘every one’ with two words is the correct option.

Let’s look at an example.

I called everybody to invite them over. (Correct)
=> I called everyone to invite them over.

I called everybody of my friends to invite them over. (Incorrect)
=> I called every one/ each one of my friends to invite them over.

So let’s do a quick recap before we move on.

We use ‘each’ and ‘every’ with singular nouns.
‘Each’ puts more emphasis on the individual within the group
‘Every’ puts our attention on the group as a whole.

V) Others differences between Each and Every

There are still some important things that you need to know.

1, Each + only two things

When you’re talking about exactly two things, you can use ‘each’.

Not when you’re talking about three or four or ten things, only when you’re talking about two.

I’ve got an earring in each ear.

=> I’ve got two ears, so I can use ‘each’ to talk about my ears, but I can’t use ‘every’.

If you say “I have an earring in every ear”, it sounds really quite strange like, how many ears do you have?

2, Each + Plural nouns

Earlier we have told you that ‘each’ and ‘every’ are usually used with singular nouns but there is a little exception or a rule that we’ve got to talk about here.

‘Every’ can’t be used with plural nouns, but ‘each’ can be used with plural nouns with a small change in form.

To use ‘each’ with plural nouns, you need to add the word ‘of’.

Form: Each + of + plural noun.

We can’t say:

Each cats have a red collar.

But we can say:

Each cat has a red collar.
Each of the cats have a red collar.

There is not much difference in meaning between these two correct sentences but it’s important to notice that we do include the article ‘the’ here.

It’s really important. You must use it. Unless you’re using the plural determiners or pronouns like ‘us’ or ‘them’ or ‘these’ or ‘those’, we don’t need to use the article then.

Right so let’s look at a couple of examples of how they’re used.

Each of us won a prize.
Each of the kids was given a balloon.
Did Sarah make each of those?

3, Every + time expressions

Another useful thing to keep in mind is that ‘every’ is more commonly used with time expressions.

She visits her grandma every Thursday.
Rebecca is on social media so much, she checks her Facebook every hour!

Now, actually ‘each’ wouldn’t be wrong in either of these sentences. You could use ‘each’ with many of these time expressions but ‘every’ is just more common and it usually sounds a little more natural. The difference is very subtle.

Each Monday at 2pm I have a meeting.
Every Monday at 2pm I have a meeting.

That’s fine. Using every is a little better, it sounds a little more natural.

VI) “Each and every”

Put your questions in the comments, and we will answer each and every of them!

So, you can also use each and every together like this. The phrase ‘each and every’ is really common in spoken English and it puts all of the emphasis on the whole group but every single person in the group. So it’s like a combination.

And it’s a fixed expression that you’ll see from time to time, and you’ll see both of these words together. That is perfectly acceptable, especially when you are trying to emphasise each and every person in the group is important.

It is the end of our lesson today! Before we say goodbye to each and every one of you, we want you to tell me in the comments if there are any other English words like ‘each’ and ‘every’ that confuse you a little, that you’d like us to explain more. We will write more articles just like this one to help you understand some of the more subtle differences between English words and help you to sound a little more natural as you’re using English.

In order to get further explanation and practice your listening skills also, watch the video below. Thank you for reading and see you in the next writing!