S, s: Meaning and Definition of

S

Pronunciation: (es), [key]
— pl. S's Ss, s's 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
  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.

S

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. satisfactory.
  2. Saxon.
  3. sentence.
  4. short.
  5. siemens.
  6. signature.
  7. single.
  8. small.
  9. soft.
  10. soprano.
  11. South.
  12. Southern.
  13. state (highway).
  14. subject.

S

Pronunciation: [key]
— 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.
  3. second.
  4. serine.
  5. entropy.
  6. strangeness.
  7. sulfur.

s

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. satisfactory.
  2. signature.
  3. small.
  4. soft.
  5. south.

s

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. second.

's

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. an 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.

's

Pronunciation: [key]
  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.

's

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a contraction of God's, as in 'swounds; 'sdeath; 'sblood.

's

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a contraction of us, as in Let's go.

's

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a contraction of as, as in so's to get there on time.

-s

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a native English suffix used in the formation of adverbs:Cf. always; betimes; needs; unawares.

-s

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. an ending marking the third person sing. indicative active of verbs: walks.

-s

Pronunciation: [key]
  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 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 has no plural value, are adjectives denoting socially unacceptable or inconvenient states (bananas; bonkers; crackers; nuts; preggers; starkers); cf.

-s

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a suffix of hypocoristic nouns, generally proper names or forms used only in address: Babs; Fats; Suzykins; Sweetums; Toodles.

S.

Pronunciation: [key]
  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)
    1. mark; write; label.
    2. let it be written.
  12. Signor.
  13. Small.
  14. Socialist.
  15. Society.
  16. Fellow.
  17. sol (def. 1).
  18. South.
  19. Southern.
  20. (in Ecuador) sucre; sucres.
  21. Sunday.

s.

Pronunciation: [key]
  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.