SOS.
The conventional Morse code call made by a ship in distress.
Meaning & usage
The conventional Morse code call made by a ship in distress.
The crew sent a frantic SOS as they realised the scale of the disaster.
Where this word comes from
From interpretation of the signal (· · · — — — · · ·), chosen merely as a sequence that is easy to recall and transmit, as normal Morse letters. It is not, as is commonly believed, an abbreviation for "save our souls", "save our ship", or any other phrase.
A children's game in which players take turns to place S's and O's on a grid, collecting points by creating an "SOS" sequence.
Initialism of Secretary of State.
Initialism of special order sale.
Initialism of slip on show: a warning to a woman that the underwear she has on can be seen.
Initialism of shit on a shingle.
Initialism of struck off strength or stricken off strength.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.