What ˢ means
It marks an s-like detail added to a nearby sound. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a shared system for writing speech sounds, uses ˢ after a stop consonant such as t to mark a short hiss as the consonant is released. A stop briefly blocks airflow; the surrounding transcription shows which sound the modifier affects.
The International Phonetic Association began in 1886 to improve language teaching, and its chart changed through later revisions. An archived 1930 chart records ʃˢ as an s-like variety of ʃ, the consonant at the start of “ship”; the archive notes that some revisions already appeared in phonetician Daniel Jones's 1928 work.
Technical notation: in phonetic transcriptions, ˢ adds an s-like detail to a neighboring sound.
For a visual superscript, use text styling; ˢ can change the sound being described.
Drift: SIL's IPA keyboard table marks ˢ as withdrawn in 1989. A Cambridge paper published online in 2024 still uses [tˢ] for Danish /tˢ/.
Who writes ˢ
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsWithout a nearby base sound, its target is unclear.
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
2
t͡s In IPA, the tie bar in t͡s joins t and s as one affricate: a consonant that starts with blocked airflow and releases into friction. ˢ instead adds an s-like release detail after a stop.
Questions people ask
2Is ˢ real Unicode text or just formatting?
Yes. ˢ is a separate text character with phonetic meaning; styling raises an ordinary s visually without inserting this character.
Why does ˢ look different in another font?
It can. Each font draws ˢ differently, so its height, shape, or weight may vary while the text character remains the same.
More like this
11
Collections with ˢ
2
How to type or find ˢ
- Also called
- superscript s
- Search it as
- raised s · IPA · phonetic s · s release · IPA keyboard · affricate · tiny s
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ˢ\02E2s^; when the Before option is enabled, enter ^s instead.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.