San

//ˈsæn// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An Ancient Greek letter representing /s/ (uppercase Ϻ, lowercase ϻ), originally used in some dialects instead of sigma.
  2. 2
    A sanatorium. dated, informal

    ""Haven't you heard?" said Belinda. "Joan's ill! She'd got a high temperature, and she's in bed in the San.""

  3. 3
    Any of the foraging non-Bantu ethnic groups of southwestern Africa. ethnic, offensive, plural, plural-only, regional, slur
  4. 4
    Acronym of storage area network. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
  5. 5
    Abbreviation of South African. abbreviation, alt-of

    "On average it is possible that an Afrikaner is more racist than an Anglo white SAn, I have met many racist white English South Africans."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    Acronym of system area network. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
  2. 7
    Acronym of Subject Alternative Name. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
  3. 8
    Acronym of styrene-acrylonitrile resin. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
  4. 9
    Acronym of styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer or sytrene acrylonitrile copolymer. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
  5. 10
    Acronym of sinoatrial node. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable, uncountable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Any of the languages spoken by these people.
  2. 2
    A river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine.
  3. 3
    Initialism of Straight Arrow News. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism

    "SAN asked Sanger if, instead of allowing more sources that are deemed less reliable by media watchdogs, they should make the standards stricter and ban more outlets that have a lower reliability rating."

Synonyms

All synonyms
bushmanbushmanbushmenbushmenstorage area network

Example

More examples

"There will be an in-person meeting of the marketing subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon of Jan 27, 1999 at the San Francisco CA Airport Marriott."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek σάν (sán), from a Semitic language.

Etymology 2

Shortening of sanatorium.

Etymology 3

As a synonym of Bushmen introduced into ethnology from the 1960s, from Khoekhoe saan (singular saa) "foragers; people without wealth", via back-formation from Khoisan. Occasional citation as the Nama term for "Bushmen" from the 1880s.

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Polish San.

Related phrases

styrene acrylonitrilesytrene acrylonitrile

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.