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• s
  s

  abbreviation

  satisfactory.
• 's
  's

  an ending used in writing to represent the possessive morpheme after most singular nouns, some plural nouns, especially 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, (orwitness' ), king of England's, or anyone's.
• S
  S

  noun

  the 19th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.
• -s
  -s

  a native English suffix used in the formation of adverbs.
• s.
  s.

  abbreviation

  saint.
• S.
  S.

  abbreviation

  (in prescriptions) mark; write; label.
• -'s
  -'s

  suffix

  forming the possessive singular of nouns and some pronouns
• -s'
  -s'

  suffix

  forming the possessive of plural nouns ending in the sound s or z and of some singular nouns

s

¹ American  

abbreviation

1. satisfactory.

2. signature.

3. small.

4. soft.

5. south.

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s ² American  

Symbol.

1. second.

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's ³ American  

1. an ending used in writing to represent the possessive morpheme after most singular nouns, some plural nouns, especially 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, (orwitness' ), king of England's, or anyone's.

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's ⁴ American  

1. 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.

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's ⁵ American  

Archaic.

1. a contraction of God's, as in 'swounds; 'sdeath; 'sblood.

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's ⁶ American  

1. a contraction of us, as in Let's go.

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's ⁷ American  

1. a contraction of as, as in so's to get there on time.

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S ⁸ American  

[es] / ɛs /

Or s

noun

S's, plural Ss, plural s's, plural ss plural

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.

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S ⁹ American  

abbreviation

1. satisfactory.

2. Baseball. sacrifice.

3. Baseball. save.

4. Saxon.

5. sentence.

6. short.

7. Electricity. siemens.

8. signature.

9. single.

10. small.

11. soft.

12. Music. soprano.

13. South.

14. Southern.

15. state (highway).

16. Grammar. subject.

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S ¹⁰ American  

Symbol.

1. the 19th in order or in a series

2. (sometimes lowercase) the medieval Roman numeral for 7 or 70.

3. second.

4. Biochemistry. serine.

5. Thermodynamics. entropy.

6. Physics. strangeness.

7. Chemistry. sulfur.

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-s ¹¹ American  

1. a native English suffix used in the formation of adverbs.

   always; betimes; needs; unawares.

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-s ¹² American  

1. an ending marking the third person singular indicative active of verbs.

   walks.

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-s ¹³ American  

1. an 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 -s3 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 -s3 has no plural value, are adjectives denoting socially unacceptable or inconvenient states (bananas; bonkers; crackers; nuts; preggers; starkers ); cf. -ers.

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-s ¹⁴ American  

1. a suffix of hypocoristic nouns, generally proper names or forms used only in address.

   Babs; Fats; Suzykins; Sweetums; Toodles.

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s. ¹⁵ American  

abbreviation

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.

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S. ¹⁶ American  

abbreviation

1. (in prescriptions) mark; write; label.

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S. ¹⁷ American  

abbreviation

1. (in prescriptions) let it be written.

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S. ¹⁸ American  

abbreviation

1. Fellow.

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S. ¹⁹ American  

abbreviation

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. Signor.

12. Small.

13. Socialist.

14. Society.

15. sol.

16. South.

17. Southern.

18. (in Ecuador) sucre; sucres.

19. Sunday.

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S ¹ British  

symbol

1. satisfactory

2. Society

3. small (size)

4. South

5. chem sulphur

6. physics

   1. entropy

   2. siemens

   3. strangeness

7. currency

   1. (the former) schilling

   2. sol

   3. (the former) sucre

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abbreviation

1. Sweden (international car registration)

-'s ² British  

suffix

1. forming the possessive singular of nouns and some pronouns

   man's

   one's

2. forming the possessive plural of nouns whose plurals do not end in -s

   children's

3. forming the plural of numbers, letters, or symbols

   20's

   p's and q's

4. informal contraction of is or has

   he's here

   John's coming

   it's gone

5. informal contraction of us with let

   let's

6. informal contraction of does in some questions

   where's he live?

   what's he do?

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s. ³ British  

abbreviation

1. see

2. semi-

3. shilling

4. singular

5. son

6. succeeded

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S. ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. Saint

2. school

3. Sea

4. Signor

5. Society

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s ⁵ British  

/ ɛs /

noun

1. the 19th letter and 15th consonant of the modern English alphabet

2. a speech sound represented by this letter, usually an alveolar fricative, either voiceless, as in sit, or voiced, as in dogs

3. 1. something shaped like an S

   2. ( in combination )

      an S-bend in a road

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-s ⁶ British  

suffix

1. forming the plural of most nouns

   boys

   boxes

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-s ⁷ British  

suffix

1. forming the third person singular present indicative tense of verbs

   he runs

   she washes

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-s ⁸ British  

suffix

1. forming nicknames and names expressing affection or familiarity

   Fats

   Fingers

   ducks

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-s' ⁹ British  

suffix

1. forming the possessive of plural nouns ending in the sound s or z and of some singular nouns

   girls'

   for goodness' sake

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s ¹⁰ British  

symbol

1. second (of time)

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Usage

See contraction.

See contraction.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• S's
  plural
• Ss
  plural
• s's
  plural
• ss
  plural

Etymology

Origin of 's³

Middle English -es, Old English

Origin of -s¹¹

Middle English -es, Old English; ultimately identical with 's ¹

Origin of -s¹²

Middle English (north) -( e ) s, Old English (north); originally ending of 2nd person singular, as in Latin and Greek; replacing Middle English, Old English -eth -eth ¹

Origin of -s¹³

Middle English - ( e ) s, Old English -as, plural nominative and accusative ending of some masculine nouns

Origin of -s¹⁴

Probably from the metonymic use of nouns formed with -s ³, as boots or Goldilocks

Origin of S.¹⁶

From the Latin word signa

Origin of S.¹⁷

From the Latin word signētur

Origin of S.¹⁸

From the Latin word socius

Example Sentences

Limited edition versions of the S and X were handed off to customers in May.

From MarketWatch • Jul. 2, 2026

Those vehicles, the Model X and Model S, previously sold new for around $100,000.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 2, 2026

The slide finishes with an S turn, which the Endeavour executed to burn energy.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 24, 2026

Her Hollywood breakthrough came in 2001 when she appeared as Samantha Darko in Donnie Darko and later played the titular character's sister in the 2009 film S Darko.

From BBC • Jun. 17, 2026

"But I don't L-Y like an S," he said.

From "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell