ss

1. 1
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of screenshot.

   He saved an ss of the conversation before the thread was deleted.

   Drop an ss of your settings and I'll tell you what to change.

   Note

   Chat shorthand from internet slang and text messaging. It belongs in a message thread, while a report or a manual spells out screenshot in full. Grammatically it behaves like the full noun: it takes an article, you save or send one, and you drop one into a conversation. Screenshot is also a verb, but this shorthand stands for the thing captured, not the act.

2. 2
   SayES-iz/ˈɛsɪz/

   noun

   Plural of s. Usually written s's in American English.

   Her handwriting made the two ss in "possess" look almost identical.

   The crossword clue hinted that the answer contained a pair of ss.

   Note

   The plural is made by doubling the letter: one s, two ss. Because s also abbreviates scruple, strange quark, season and small, the doubled form can count more than letters. Its spelling also coincides with the screenshot shorthand and the lab abbreviation. Only context tells a pair of letters from a saved image or a single strand.

3. 3
   adjectiveabbreviation

   Abbreviation of single-stranded.

   The lab confirmed the genome was ss RNA rather than double-stranded.

   During replication the enzyme briefly exposes an ss DNA region.

   Note

   A laboratory abbreviation that goes in front of the name of a nucleic acid: ss DNA, ss RNA, often closed up as ssDNA and ssRNA. It marks a single polynucleotide chain rather than a duplex, and it is usually set against double-stranded forms. Like single-stranded, it is not comparable: a molecule is either single-stranded or it is not.

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