History
Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ (as in ' sh ip'). It originated most likely as a pictogram of a tooth ( שנא) and represented the phoneme /ʃ/ via the acrophonic principle.
Use in writing systems
The letter ⟨s⟩ is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most common consonant after ⟨t⟩ and ⟨n⟩. It is the most common letter for the first letter of a word in the English language.
Overview
S, or s, is the nineteenth letter in the Modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is ess , plural esses.
History
Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ (as in 'ship'). It originated most likely as a pictogram of a tooth (שנא) and represented the phoneme /ʃ/ via the acrophonic principle.
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 co…
Use in writing systems
The letter ⟨s⟩ is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most common consonant after ⟨t⟩ and ⟨n⟩. It is the most common letter for the first letter of a word in the English language.
In English and several other languages, primarily Western Romance ones like Spanish and French, final ⟨s⟩ is the usual mark of plural nouns. It is the regular ending of English third person present tense verbs.
Related characters
• ſ : Latin letter long s, an obsolete variant of s
• ẜ ẝ : Various forms of long s were used for medieval scribal abbreviations
• ẞ ß : German Eszett or "sharp S", derived from a ligature of long s followed by either s or z
Chemistry
The letter S is used:
• In a chemical formula to represent sulfur. For example, SO 2 is sulfur dioxide.
• In the preferred IUPAC name for a chemical, to indicate a specific enantiomer. For example, "(S)-2-(4-Chloro-2-methylphenoxy)propanoic acid" is one of the enantiomers of mecoprop.
See also
• Cool S
• See about Ⓢ in Enclosed Alphanumerics
External links
• Media related to S at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of S at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of s at Wiktionary
• "S" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.