"short s" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "short s's",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "short s's"
      },
      "expansion": "short s (plural short s's)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Latin letter names",
          "orig": "en:Latin letter names",
          "parents": [
            "Letter names",
            "Letters, symbols, and punctuation",
            "Names",
            "Orthography",
            "All topics",
            "Proper nouns",
            "Terms by semantic function",
            "Writing",
            "Fundamental",
            "Nouns",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Language",
            "Lemmas",
            "Human",
            "Communication"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: long s"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1888 November, The American Bookmaker: A Journal of Technical Art and Information, […], volume VII, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Howard Lockwood & Co., […], page 146",
          "text": "Most of it was in modern face of a bad cut, small pica size; the apocrypha was in long primer, old style face, although having short s’s, but the peculiarity was that one signature in the Psalms was in old style with long s’s.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, “Preface”, in Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress, Oak Knoll Press, page xxxiii",
          "text": "The following changes have silently been made: long s’s have been changed to short s’s;",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The s character, as distinct from the long s — the ſ character."
      ],
      "id": "en-short_s-en-noun-KDT-Br3R",
      "links": [
        [
          "s",
          "s"
        ],
        [
          "long s",
          "long s"
        ],
        [
          "ſ",
          "ſ"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "round s"
        },
        {
          "word": "terminal s"
        },
        {
          "word": "short ess"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the character s",
          "word": "in fraktur: s"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the character s",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "in antiqua: rundes s"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the character s",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Rund-s"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the character s",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "kurzes s"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "short s"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "short s's",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "short s's"
      },
      "expansion": "short s (plural short s's)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Latin letter names"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: long s"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1888 November, The American Bookmaker: A Journal of Technical Art and Information, […], volume VII, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Howard Lockwood & Co., […], page 146",
          "text": "Most of it was in modern face of a bad cut, small pica size; the apocrypha was in long primer, old style face, although having short s’s, but the peculiarity was that one signature in the Psalms was in old style with long s’s.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, “Preface”, in Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress, Oak Knoll Press, page xxxiii",
          "text": "The following changes have silently been made: long s’s have been changed to short s’s;",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The s character, as distinct from the long s — the ſ character."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "s",
          "s"
        ],
        [
          "long s",
          "long s"
        ],
        [
          "ſ",
          "ſ"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "round s"
        },
        {
          "word": "terminal s"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "short ess"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the character s",
      "word": "in fraktur: s"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the character s",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "in antiqua: rundes s"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the character s",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Rund-s"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the character s",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "kurzes s"
    }
  ],
  "word": "short s"
}