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-s

a native English suffix used in the formation of adverbs: always; betimes; needs; unawares.

Compare -ways.

Origin:
ME -es, OE; ult. identical with 's ¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Language Translation for : -s

Spanish:

en,

German:

zu; an; in; bei,

Japanese:

～に

View 28 other languages »

-s

an ending marking the third person sing. indicative active of verbs: walks.

Origin:
ME (north) -(e)s, OE (north); orig. ending of 2nd pers. sing., as in L and Gk; r. ME, OE -eth -eth ¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

-s

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.

Also, -es.

Origin:
ME -(e)s, OE -as, pl. nom. and acc. ending of some masculine nouns

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

-s

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

Origin:
prob. from the metonymic use of nouns formed with -s ³ , as boots or Goldilocks

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Cite This Source

-s¹ or -es
suff. Used to form plural nouns: letters.

[Middle English -es, -s, from Old English -es, -as, nominative and accusative pl. suff.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

-s² or -es
suff. Used to form the third person singular present tense of all regular and most irregular verbs: looks; holds.

[Middle English -es, -s, from Old English (Northumbrian) -es, -as, alteration (perhaps influenced by Old Norse) of -eth, -ath.]

-s³
suff. Used to form adverbs: They were caught unawares. He works nights.

[Middle English -es, -s, genitive sing. suff., from Old English -es.]

-s (1)

suffix forming almost all Mod.Eng. plural nouns, was gradually extended in M.E. from O.E. -as, the nom. plural and acc. plural ending of certain "strong" masc. nouns (cf. dæg "day," nom./acc. pl. dagas "days"). The commonest Gmc. declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Du. -s plurals and (by rhotacism) Scand. -r plurals (e.g. Swed. dagar). Much more uniform today than originally; O.E. also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in -an, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with -u. Quirk and Wrenn, in their O.E. grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masc., nearly four-fifths of them with gen. sing. -es and nom./acc. pl. in -as. Less than half, but still the largest chunk. The triumphs of -'s possessives and -s plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (cf. -ing), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (e.g. ducks, sweets, babes) as an affectionate or dim. suffix. O.E. single-syllable collectives (sheep, folk) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use -s. The use of it in these cases began in M.E., but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (ten pound of butter; more than seven year ago).

-s (2)

third pers. sing. pres. indic. suffix of verbs, it represents O.E. -es, -as, which began to replace -eð in Northumbrian 10c., and gradually spread south until by Shakespeare it had emerged from colloquialism and -eth began to be limited to more dignified speeches.

-s

-s\ 1. [OE. es, AS. as.] The suffix used to form the plural of most words; as in roads, elfs, sides, accounts.

2. [OE. -s, for older -th, AS. -[eth].] The suffix used to form the third person singular indicative of English verbs; as in falls, tells, sends.

3. An adverbial suffix; as in towards, needs, always, -- originally the genitive, possesive, ending. See -'s.

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