Sr

1. 1
   adjectiveabbreviation

   Abbreviation of senior; a title used after a father's name when his son is given the same name.

   Robert Whitfield Sr handed the family firm over to his son last spring.

   The lawyer asked whether the will named George Ashworth Sr or his son.

   Note

   The abbreviation keeps the plainest meaning of senior, "older," rather than its sense of higher rank. It marks the elder of two men who share a name. Unlike most titles it follows the name instead of preceding it. That position is the quickest way to tell it from the title for a nun, which always comes first. British style usually writes it without a period.

2. 2
   noununcountableabbreviation

   Abbreviation of sister; a title for a nun.

   Sr Agnes has run the convent's kitchen for nearly twenty years.

   Patients at the mission hospital were greeted each morning by Sr Catherine.

   Note

   Behind this title is the religious meaning of sister: a woman in a religious order, especially one given to active service rather than a life of enclosure. It stands before the given name and is capitalized, as in Sr Agnes. The full word also names a senior nurse in British hospitals, but that is a separate meaning; this abbreviation belongs to the religious title.

3. 3
   symbol

   The symbol used in chemistry for the element strontium.

   The bone sample contained more Sr than the researchers expected.

   Geologists compared Sr ratios in the rocks to trace where the groundwater came from.

   Note

   Here casing cannot help, because the symbol is spelled exactly like the title after a father's name. Position and punctuation do the work instead: an element symbol never takes a period and turns up in formulas and measurements, while the title follows a person's name. In a formula Sr stands for an atom of strontium, written beside the symbols of the other elements in the compound.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4