The title "Ms." is used before a woman's name as a form of address that does not specify her marital status, unlike "Miss" (for unmarried women) or "Mrs." (for married women). It functions as a neutral equivalent to "Mr." for men, allowing women to be addressed without reference to whether they are married or not
. Importantly, "Ms." is not an abbreviation and does not stand for any longer word; the period after "Ms." is simply a stylistic convention in American English to indicate it is a title, similar to "Mr." or "Mrs."
. The term originated as a way to address women politely without defining them by their relationship to a man, gaining widespread use especially from the 1980s onward as part of a movement toward gender equality in language
. In summary, "Ms." is a respectful, neutral title for women regardless of marital status, designed to parallel the male title "Mr."
