Latin Small Letter Sharp S

Latin Small Letter Sharp S at U+00DF is the German lowercase letter called Eszett or sharp s, representing an s-like sound after a long vowel or diphthong in standard German spelling. It sits in the Latin-1 Supplement block and is a printable lowercase letter, not a symbol or punctuation mark. Its everyday use is in German words such as Straße, groß, weiß, and Fußball, where it contrasts with ss in spelling and sometimes pronunciation-related rules. German orthography uses it after long vowels and diphthongs, while ss is used after short vowels, as in Maße versus Masse. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, standard German normally writes ss instead of this letter, so Strasse is the usual Swiss spelling. In names, addresses, passports, databases, and older systems, it may also be replaced by ss when the character is unavailable or when uppercase conversion is required, though modern German also has an uppercase counterpart. The letter is common in typography, publishing, language learning, search, and localization work involving German text. A practical issue is that searches and sorting may or may not treat ß as equivalent to ss, which matters for names such as Weiß and Weiss.