long s

• long ess

long s (plural long s's)

1. The ſ character, as distinct from the short s (which is the s character).

   Synonyms: descending s, medial s

   Hypernym: s

   Coordinate terms: short s, round s, terminal s; sharp s, double S, eszett

   • 1824, J[ohn] Johnson, Typographia, or the Printers’ Instructor: […], volume II, London: […] Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, […], page 27:

     An instance lately occurred of a work so divided (a prayer-book), where the first part was printed with long s’s, and the last part with round, independent of other deviations;

   • 1914, Una Hunt, Una Mary: The Inner Life of a Child, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 43:

     The Bible itself was quite unknown ground until I was ten and stumbled upon the Apocrypha in an old edition of the Bible printed with long s’s and beautiful early type.

   • 1914, George Moore, ‘Hail and Farewell!’: Vale, London: William Heinemann, page 311:

     He liked me to come into his dressing-room to talk to him while he lathered his face, and I remembered the lie I told him when he asked me if I had used the top of his silver shaving-pot to knock in a nail, and the day when he asked me to read him Burke’s speeches aloud in an edition printed with long s’s.

• s'long