What is the long s called?

It is simply called the long s, written ſ (sometimes “medial s” or “descending s”). It is not a different letter but an older form of the lowercase s. The familiar short s was called the round or terminal s, because it was the form used at the end of words.

When did people stop using the long s?

In English printing it disappeared around 1800: British printers began dropping it in the late 1780s and The Times switched in 1803, with American printers following within a few years. In handwriting it lasted longer — especially in a double “ss” — and still turns up in letters and records into the mid-1800s. In German Fraktur and Kurrent it survived until the 1940s.

How can I tell a long s from an f?

In print, look at the crossbar: an f has a bar that crosses the full stem, while the long s has only a small nub on the left side, or none at all. In handwriting, both often descend below the line, so use context — the long s never appears at the end of a word, and replacing it with s usually produces a real word (“Congreſs” → Congress).

Why did they write s like f?

They didn’t write s like f — the two letters simply shared a similar tall shape that goes back to Roman and medieval handwriting. Writers and printers used the long s at the start and in the middle of words and the round s at the end, much as Greek still uses two forms of sigma today.

The Long S (ſ): Why Old Documents Write “s” Like “f” — and How to Read It

Open almost any document from the 1700s and you'll hit it within a line or two: “Congrefs,” “fucceſs,” “Meſſuage.” It looks as if the writer kept mistyping f for s. They didn't. You're looking at the long s — written ſ — a perfectly ordinary form of the lowercase s that English readers used for centuries and then dropped almost overnight. Once you know its rules, it stops being a stumbling block and becomes a handy clue to a document's age.

What the Long S Is

The lowercase s used to come in two shapes. The long s (ſ) is tall and narrow, rising above the line like an f and, in handwriting, often dropping below it. The round s — the only one we use today — was the “terminal” form. Both go back to Roman and medieval handwriting, and the split is not unusual: Greek still writes sigma two ways (σ inside a word, ς at the end). So the long s is not a separate letter and never stood for a different sound. Read every ſ as a plain s and the words fall into place: Congreſs is Congress, poſſeſſion is possession, Meſſuage is messuage (a house with its land, a favorite word of old deeds).

The Rules: Where the Long S Appears

Printers and writers followed a simple core pattern, with house-by-house variations around the edges:

Start and middle of a word → long s. ſome, ſtate, preſent, uſed.
End of a word → round s. This is the one rule that almost never breaks: “Congreſs,” not “Congreſſ.” If a word ends in what looks like an f, it really is an f.
Double s → usually long + round (“ſs”) at the end of a word, and often long + long (“ſſ”) inside one: “buſineſs,” “neceſſary.”
Capitals are never long. The long form exists only in lowercase.
Exceptions vary by printer. Many used a round s next to f (to avoid the awkward “ſf”), and some before b or k. Don't let these trip you up — they only ever make the text easier to read.

Long S vs. F: How to Tell Them Apart

In print, check the crossbar. An f has a bar that runs clean across the stem. The long s has, at most, a small nub on the left side only — or no bar at all. Under a magnifier the difference is consistent and easy to learn.

In handwriting it's harder, because both letters are tall loops that may descend below the line and neither gets a careful crossbar from a hurried pen. Use three checks instead: (1) position — at the end of a word it's an f; (2) substitution — swap in an s and see whether a real word appears; (3) the writer's own f — find an unmistakable f elsewhere on the page (“of,” “for,” “from”) and compare. In 18th- and early 19th-century American letters, the long s survives most stubbornly in the double “ss,” where the first s is drawn as a long descending stroke that can look like a lowercase f, a p, or even the German ß.

When It Disappeared — and Why That Helps You Date Documents

The long s vanished from English printing around 1800. British printers began dropping it in the late 1780s, The Times switched in 1803, and American printers followed within a few years. Handwriting was slower to change: people kept writing the way they were taught, so the long s — above all in “ss” — keeps showing up in letters, account books, and court records into the mid-1800s, written by an older generation long after the newspapers had moved on.

That gives you a rough dating tool. A printed page full of ſ almost certainly predates about 1800. A handwritten page with a long s in “ss” but round s elsewhere fits the early 1800s nicely. And if you're holding a family Bible, deed, or will with long s throughout, you're probably looking at the 18th century. Our guide to American handwriting by era has the matching letterform clues, and how to read old deeds and wills covers the abbreviations that usually travel alongside the long s.

German Documents: The Long S Lived Much Longer

If your family papers include German, expect the long s everywhere. German Fraktur type and Kurrent and Sütterlin handwriting kept it until 1941, and it survives today inside the German letter ß, which began as a ligature of long s and a following s or z. In Kurrent the long s is a tall, slanted stroke that's easy to confuse with an h or an f — see our guides to Fraktur and Kurrent transcription for the details.

Transcribing the Long S: Keep It or Modernize It?

Both are legitimate, and the choice depends on the purpose. Genealogists and anyone sharing a document with family usually modernize — write “Congress,” not “Congreſs” — because the long s carries no meaning of its own. Scholarly or legal (diplomatic) transcriptions preserve it, so readers can see exactly what's on the page. What you should never do is write it as an f: “Congrefs” is a misreading, not a transcription.

Our transcriptions give you both options automatically. The word-for-word version stays close to the original, while the cleaned-up reading version modernizes spellings like the long s so the text reads naturally. Upload a page to the old-handwriting translator — or simply start with the free first page — and the long s, along with every other archaic letterform, is read as what it is: just an s, from another time.