س

Meaning

Character

1. (letter) The twelfth letter of the Arabic alphabet. It is preceded by ز (z) and followed by ش (š).
2. (letter) x, unknown mathematical variable

Symbol

The fifteenth letter in traditional abjad order, which is used in place of numerals for list numbering (abjad numerals). It is preceded by ن (n) and followed by ع (ʕ).

Particle

will (prefix indicating the future tense)

Concepts

S

Sep.

shall

X

Sa.

🈂️

Synonyms

أ

أ

أ

أ

أ

ش

ش

Translations

S

Σ

S

S

S

S

s

E

ds

S

Z

S

C

Pronounced as (IPA)

/siːn/

Etymology

From Nabataean 𐢝 (š), from Classical Syriac ܫ (š), from Aramaic ש (š), from Imperial Aramaic 𐡔 (š), from the Egyptian 𓌒.
This letter stood for /ʃ/ in Aramaic. 𐢖 was not adopted into the Arabic alphabet because of the following considerations:
Proto-Semitic has three fricatives that became sibilants in descendant languages: ś, š, s. In Arabic ś gave /ʃ/, but š and s merged to /s/. In Old Aramaic all three sibilants were distinguished, and s was represented by 𐢖 / ס / 𐡎 while 𐢝 / ש / 𐡔 represented both ś and š. This orthography persisted in later Aramaic even to the time of the Nabataeans, when the pronunciation of ś merged with that of s /s/.
So when a scribe wanted to write the Arabic sound /ʃ/ from ś, he did so by using 𐢝 / س purposefully in order to stick to a letter form that looks the same in the cognate Aramaic words. But when he wanted to write an Arabic sound /s/ from Proto-Semitic š, he would defy the Aramaic spelling for this Proto-Semitic phoneme were he to represent this Arabic phoneme by the sign 𐢖 / ס / 𐡎, whereas Arabic-Aramaic word pairs with the Proto-Semitic s are – somewhat by coincidence – rare and there was hence only negligible pressure to employ 𐢖 / ܣ / ס / 𐡎, in total. So the impression was that 𐢝 / ש / 𐡔 / س is the most typical sign to write /s/ while the other possible sign fell out of use.