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Not to be confused with Cyrillic letter Dze (Ѕ) or the Georgian Asomtavruli letter Ch'ari (Ⴝ).
This article is about the nineteenth letter of the alphabet. For other uses, see S (disambiguation).
"Ess" redirects here. For other uses, see Ess (disambiguation).
For technical reasons, "S#" redirects here. For the programming language, see Script.NET.
For technical reasons, "ſ" redirects here. For the archaic medial form of the letter "s", see Long s.
For technical reasons, "S#arp" redirects here. For the South Korean band, see Sharp (South
Korean band).
S
Ss
ſ

Usage
Writing system Latin script
TypeAlphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin Latin language
Phonetic usage
/s/
/ʃ/
/θ/
/ts/
/ʒ/
/ɛs/
Unicode codepoint U+0053, U+0073
Alphabetical position 19
History
Development
Aa32
M40
Proto-Sinaitic Shin
Proto-Sinaitic Shin
Phoenician Sin
Proto-Caanite Shin
Σσς
ς
𐌔
Ss
Time period ~-700 to present
Descendants
ſßƧꞄ$₷§℠ᛋ∫
Sisters
Ѕѕ
Сс
Шш
Щщ
Ҫҫ
Ԍԍ
‫ש‬
‫ش‬
‫ܫ‬
‫س‬
ࠔ
𐎘
𐡔
ሠ
ㅅ (disputed)
Սս
श
स
શ
સ
Variations ſ
Other
Other letters commonly used withs(x), sh, sz
Writing direction Left-to-Right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an
introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see
IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
S
ISO basic
Latin alphabet
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
vte
S, or s, is the nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the
alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is
ess[a] (pronounced /ˈɛs/), plural esses.[1]

History
Further information: Shin (letter), Sigma, San (letter), and Sho (letter)
Proto-Sinaitic
Shin Phoenician
Shin Western Greek
Sigma Etruscan
S Latin
S

Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ (as in 'ship'). It originated
most likely as a pictogram of a tooth (‫ )שנא‬and represented the phoneme /ʃ/ via the acrophonic
principle.[2]

Ancient Greek did not have a /ʃ/ phoneme, so the derived Greek letter sigma (Σ) came to
represent the voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/. While the letter shape Σ continues Phoenician šîn, its
name sigma is taken from the letter samekh, while the shape and position of samekh but name
of šîn is continued in the xi. [citation needed] Within Greek, the name of sigma was influenced
by its association with the Greek word σίζω (earlier *sigj-) "to hiss". The original name of the
letter "sigma" may have been san, but due to the complicated early history of the Greek
epichoric alphabets, "san" came to be identified as a separate letter, Ϻ.[3] Herodotus reports
that "San" was the name given by the Dorians to the same letter called "Sigma" by the Ionians.
[4]

The Western Greek alphabet used in Cumae was adopted by the Etruscans and Latins in the 7th
century BC, over the following centuries developing into a range of Old Italic alphabets
including the Etruscan alphabet and the early Latin alphabet. In Etruscan, the value /s/ of Greek
sigma (𐌔) was maintained, while san (𐌑) represented a separate phoneme, most likely /ʃ/
(transliterated as ś). The early Latin alphabet adopted sigma, but not san, as Old Latin did not
have a /ʃ/ phoneme.

The shape of Latin S arises from Greek Σ by dropping one out of the four strokes of that letter.
The (angular) S-shape composed of three strokes existed as a variant of the four-stroke letter Σ
already in the epigraphy in Western Greek alphabets, and the three and four strokes variants
existed alongside one another in the classical Etruscan alphabet. In other Italic alphabets
(Venetic, Lepontic), the letter could be represented as a zig-zagging line of any number between
three and six strokes.

The Italic letter was also adopted into Elder Futhark, as Sowilō (ᛊ), and appears with four to eight
strokes in the earliest runic inscriptions, but is occasionally reduced to three strokes ( ᛋ) from the
later 5th century, and appears regularly with three strokes in Younger Futhark.

The ⟨sh⟩ digraph for English /ʃ/ arose in Middle English (alongside ⟨sch⟩), replacing the Old
English ⟨sc⟩ digraph. Similarly, Old High German ⟨sc⟩ was replaced by ⟨sch⟩ in Early Modern High
German orthography.

Long s

Late medieval German script (Swabian bastarda, dated 1496) illustrating the use of long and
round s: prieſters tochter ("priest's daughter").
Main article: Long s
The minuscule form ſ, called the long s, developed in the early medieval period, within the
Visigothic and Carolingian hands, with predecessors in the half-uncial and cursive scripts of Late
Antiquity. It remained standard in western writing throughout the medieval period and was
adopted in early printing with movable types. It existed alongside minuscule "round" or "short"
s, which was at the time only used at the end of words.
In most Western orthographies, the ſ gradually fell out of use during the second half of the 18th
century, although it remained in occasional use into the 19th century. In Spain, the change was
mainly accomplished between 1760 and 1766. In France, the change occurred between 1782
and 1793. Printers in the United States stopped using the long s between 1795 and 1810. In
English orthography, the London printer John Bell (1745–1831) pioneered the change. His
edition of Shakespeare, in 1785, was advertised with the claim that he "ventured to depart from
the common mode by rejecting the long 'ſ' in favor of the round one, as being less liable to
error....."[5] The Times of London made the switch from the long to the short s with its issue of
10 September 1803. Encyclopædia Britannica's 5th edition, completed in 1817, was the last
edition to use the long s.

In German orthography, long s was retained in Fraktur (Schwabacher) type as well as in standard
cursive (Sütterlin) well into the 20th century, until official use of that typeface was abolished in
1941.[6] The ligature of ſs (or ſz) was retained, however, giving rise to the Eszett ⟨ß⟩, in
contemporary German orthography.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨s⟩ by language
Orthography Phonemes
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) /s/
English /s/, /z/, silent
French /s/, /z/, silent
German /z/, /s/, /ʃ/
Portuguese /s/, /z/
Spanish /s/
Turkish /s/
English
In English, ⟨s⟩ represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/. It also commonly represents a voiced
alveolar sibilant /z/, as in 'rose' and 'bands'.

Due to yod-coalescence, it may represent a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /ʃ/, as in 'sugar', or

a voiced palato-alveolar fricative /ʒ/, as in 'measure'.

In some words of French origin, ⟨s⟩ is silent, as in 'isle' or 'debris'.

The letter ⟨s⟩ is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most common
consonant after ⟨t⟩ and ⟨n⟩.[7] It is the most common letter for the first letter of a word in the
English language.[8][9]

Final ⟨s⟩ is the usual mark of plural nouns. It is the regular ending of English third person present
tense verbs.

German
In German, ⟨s⟩ represents:

A voiced alveolar sibilant /z/ before vowels (except after obstruents), as in 'sich'.
A voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ before consonants or when final, as in 'ist' and 'das'.
A voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /ʃ/ before ⟨p, t⟩ at the beginning of a word or syllable, as in
'spät' and 'Stadt'.
When doubled (⟨ss⟩), it represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/, as in 'müssen'.

In the digraph ⟨sch⟩, it represents a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /ʃ/, as in 'schon'.