meaning - Is "sb." a commonly accepted abbreviation? What does it mean?


What does sb. mean? I keep seeing it certain posters' questions and I'm not sure what it's supposed to stand for — the word something, my initial guess, doesn't have a 'b' in it. So my questions are: Is it a known abbreviation? What does it mean?



Answer



sb. is used as abbreviation for substantive, which grammarians use as a basic term form for noun. This is an old practice from the Latin days. n is used to denote proper nouns in such cases.


For example, in "What does “pull sb. out of the hat” mean?", sb. is used as a placeholder for a noun.


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