Dictionary![]() ![]() SsPronunciation: (es), [key] —n., —pl. S's or Ss, s'sor ss. 1. the 19th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant. 2. any spoken sound represented by the letter S or s, as in saw, sense, or goose. 3. something having the shape of an S. 4. a written or printed representation of the letter S or s. 5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter S or s. S1. satisfactory. 2. Saxon. 3. sentence. 4. short. 5. Elect.siemens. 6. signature. 7. single. 8. small. 9. soft. 10. Music.soprano. 11. South. 12. Southern. 13. state (highway). 14. Gram.subject. S—Symbol. 1. the 19th in order or in a series, or, when I is omitted, the 18th. 2. (sometimes l.c.) the medieval Roman numeral for 7 or 70. Cf. Roman numerals. 3. second. 4. Biochem.serine. 5. Thermodynam.entropy. 6. Physics.strangeness. 7. sulfur. s1. satisfactory. 2. signature. 3. small. 4. soft. 5. south. s—Symbol. second. 'san ending used in writing to represent the possessive morpheme after most singular nouns, some plural nouns, esp. those not ending in a letter or combination of letters representing an s or z sound, noun phrases, and noun substitutes, as in man's, women's, baby's, James's, witness's, (or witness'), king of England's, or anyone's. 's1. contraction of is: She's here. 2. contraction of does: What's he do for a living now? 3. contraction of has: He's just gone. 'sArchaic. a contraction of God's, as in 'swounds; 'sdeath; 'sblood. 'sa contraction of us, as in Let's go. 'sa contraction of as, as in so's to get there on time. -sa native English suffix used in the formation of adverbs: always; betimes; needs; unawares. Cf. -ways. -san ending marking the third person sing. indicative active of verbs: walks. -san ending marking nouns as plural (boys; wolves), occurring also on nouns that have no singular (dregs; entrails; pants; scissors), or on nouns that have a singular with a different meaning (clothes; glasses; manners; thanks). The pluralizing value of -s 3 is weakened or lost in a number of nouns that now often take singular agreement, as the names of games (billiards; checkers; tiddlywinks) and of diseases (measles; mumps; pox; rickets); the latter use has been extended to create informal names for a variety of involuntary conditions, physical or mental (collywobbles; d.t.'s; giggles; hots; willies). A parallel set of formations, where -s 3 has no plural value, are adjectives denoting socially unacceptable or inconvenient states (bananas; bonkers; crackers; nuts; preggers; starkers); cf. -ers. Also,-es. -sa suffix of hypocoristic nouns, generally proper names or forms used only in address: Babs; Fats; Suzykins; Sweetums; Toodles. S.1. Sabbath. 2. Saint. 3. Saturday. 4. Saxon. 5. (in Austria) schilling; schillings. 6. School. 7. Sea. 8. Senate. 9. September. 10. shilling; shillings. 11. (in prescriptions) a. mark; write; label. b. let it be written. 12. Signor. 13. Small. 14. Socialist. 15. Society. 16. Fellow. 17. sol3 (def. 1). 18. South. 19. Southern. 20. (in Ecuador) sucre; sucres. 21. Sunday. s.1. saint. 2. school. 3. second. 4. section. 5. see. 6. series. 7. shilling; shillings. 8. sign. 9. signed. 10. silver. 11. singular. 12. sire. 13. small. 14. society. 15. son. 16. south. 17. southern. 18. steamer. 19. stem. 20. stem of. 21. substantive. Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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