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r

 
Dictionary: r1 or R (är) pronunciation
n., pl., r's, or R's, also rs or Rs.
  1. The 18th letter of the modern English alphabet.
  2. Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter r.
  3. The 18th in a series.
  4. Something shaped like the letter R.

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The eighteenth letter of the modern English alphabet was signified by ruis [dwarf elder] in the ogham alphabet of early Ireland.

 
R, 18th letter of the alphabet, corresponding to Greek rho. When in Latin alphabets the letters for p and r became similar in appearance, the rho form (P; which at first was used for the r sound) was restricted to the p sound, and an extra line was added for the r sound (R). In Greek, where no confusion developed, the rho continued to look like Latin P. A modification of R is the symbol ℞, used medically for recipe [Lat.,=take] and liturgically for responsum [Lat.,=response].


Symbol for ring chromosome.

Wikipedia: R
Top
R
Basic Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd    
Ee Ff Gg Hh
Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn
Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt
Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English (pronounced /ˈɑr/) is spelled ar, plural ars;[1] its name in Hiberno-English is or /ˈɔr/.

Contents

History

Egyptian hieroglyph
tp
Proto-Semitic R Phoenician
resh
Etruscan R Greek
Rho
Later Etruscan R
D1
Proto-semiticR-01.png PhoenicianR-01.png EtruscanR-01.png Rho uc lc.svg EtruscanR-02.png

The original Semitic letter was probably inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for "head", pronounced t-p in Egyptian, but it was used for /r/ by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was Rêš (also the name of the letter). It developed into Greek Ρ ῥῶ (Rhô) and Latin R. It is likely that some Etruscan and Western Greek forms of the letter added the extra stroke to distinguish it from a later form of the letter P.

The minuscule (lower-case) form of r developed through several variations on the capital form. In handwriting it was common not to close the bottom of the loop but continue into the leg, saving an extra pen stroke. The loop-leg stroke shortened into the simple arc used today. Another minuscule, r rotunda (ꝛ), kept the loop-leg stroke but dropped the vertical stroke. It fell out of use around the 18th century.

Usage

The letter R represents a rhotic consonant in many languages, as shown in the table below. The International Phonetic Alphabet uses several variations of the letter to represent the different rhotic consonsants; [r] represents the alveolar trill.

Alveolar trill [r] Listen Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, some dialects of British English or in emphatic speech, Finnish, German in some dialects, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Czech, Lithuanian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Catalan, Portuguese (traditional European form), Romanian, Russian, Scots, Spanish and Albanian 'rr', Swedish, Welsh, in standard Dutch, Galician
Alveolar approximant [ɹ] Listen English (most varieties), Dutch in some Dutch dialects (in specific positions of words), Faroese
Alveolar flap / Alveolar tap [ɾ] Listen Greek, Hindi 'र', Korean 'ㄹ' (also realised as [l] or [ɭ]), Polish, Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish and Albanian 'r', Turkish, Italian, Quechua, Galician, Leonese
Alveolar lateral flap [ɺ] Listen Japanese
Voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ] Listen Mandarin as an allophone, Spanish used as an allophone of [r] in some South American accents.
Retroflex approximant [ɻ] Listen some varieties of American English, Mandarin as an allophone
Retroflex flap [ɽ] Listen Hindi 'ड़', sometimes Scottish English
Uvular trill [ʀ] Listen Arabic, German stage standard, French; some Dutch dialects (mainly in Belgium), Swedish in Southern Sweden
Voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] Listen German, Danish, French in and around Paris, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese

Other languages may use the letter r in their alphabets (or Latin transliterations schemes) to represent rhotic consonants different from the alveolar trill. In Haitian Creole, it represents a sound so weak that it is often written interchangeably with w, eg. Kweyol for Kreyol.

Dog's Letter

The letter R is sometimes referred to as the littera canina (canine letter). This phrase has Latin origins: the Latin R was trilled so it sounds like a snarling dog. A good example of a trilling R is the Spanish word for dog, perro. [2] In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, such a reference is made by Juliet's nurse in Act 2, scene 4, when she calls the letter R "the dog's name." The reference is also found in Ben Jonson's English Grammar.[3]

Codes for computing

Alternative representations of R
NATO phonetic Morse code
Romeo ·–·
ICS Romeo.svg Semaphore Romeo.svg ⠗
Signal flag Flag semaphore Braille

In Unicode, the capital R is codepoint U+0052 and the lower case r is U+0072.

The ASCII code for capital R is 82 and for lowercase r is 114; or in binary 01010010 and 01110010, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital R is 217 and for lowercase r is 153.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "R" and "r" for upper and lower case respectively.

See also

References

  1. ^ "R" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); "ar," op. cit.
  2. ^ A Word A Day: Dog's letter
  3. ^ Shakespeare, William; Horace Howard Furness, Frederick Williams (1913). Romeo and Juliet. Lippincott. p. 189. http://books.google.com/books?id=Wj0OAAAAIAAJ&client=firefox-a. 
The Basic modern Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Letter R with diacritics

history palaeography derivations diacritics punctuation numerals Unicode list of letters ISO/IEC 646


Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - r

2.
abbr. - rare (sjælden), retired (pensioneret), received (modtaget), residens
symb. - røntgen, resistance (modstand)

1.
n. - R, det attende bogstav i alfabetet

idioms:

  • the r months    måneder med "r" i det engelske navn (september - april)

2.
abbr. - rex, regina, regiment, republikansk, royal, rabbiner, radius
symb. - registreret, rand, Reaumur, røntgen, R-film, rupee

Nederlands (Dutch)
koninklijk, rechts/ rechter-, straal (radius), Koning(in), De Kroon, achteruit (versnelling), toren (schaken)

Français (French)
1.
n. - r (dix-huitième lettre de l'alphabet)

2.
abbr. - rare, recette, recto, gouverné/dirigé, (Sport) dix points (cricket, base-ball), (Math) rayon, (Anat) radius, (Rail) chemin de fer, (Comm) marque déposée, droit, route, rouble
symb. - (Chim) gaz constant, tour (aux échecs), roupie, (Chim) radical, (Phys, Électron) résistance

1.
n. - R (dix-huitième lettre de l'alphabet), les trois R (la lecture, l'écriture, l'arithmétique)

idioms:

  • the r months    les mois en r

2.
abbr. - (Relig) Rabbin, (Mil) Régiment, (GB) Roi, (GB) Reine, (US, Pol) Républicain, (Géog) Rivière, Royal(e), (US, Univ) Recteur, (Relig) ecclésiastique
symb. - (Fin) unité monétaire (d'un pays), Réaumur (l'échelle), Royal, Röntgen, (US, Austral) film R (interdit aux moins de 18 ans)

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - r

2.
abbr. - Fluß, Königin, König, Republikaner, als Warenzeichen eingetragen, rechts, Turm (Schach), Rand, Rückwärtsgang, Radius, Réaumur
symb. - Röntgen, elektr. Widerstand

1.
n. - R

idioms:

  • the r months    die Monate September bis April (wenn man Auster ißt)

2.
abbr. - Fluß, Königin, König, Republikaner, als Warenzeichen eingetragen, rechts, Turm (Schach), Rand, Rückwärtsgang, Radius, Réaumur
symb. - Röntgen, elektr. Widerstand

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - το δέκατο όγδοο γράμμα του αγγλικού αλφαβήτου
symb. - Ραίντγκεν
abbr. - ακτίνα, δεξιά, ποταμός

idioms:

  • the r months    οι μήνες από Σεπτέμβρη ώς Απρίλιο

Italiano (Italian)
R, re/regina, fiume, torre, destra, punti, raggio

idioms:

  • the r months    da Settembre a Aprile

Português (Portuguese)
n. - décima oitava letra do alfabeto inglês
symb. - resistência (Eletr.), roentgen (Fís.)
abbr. - registrado, rei ou rainha

idioms:

  • the r months    outubro, novembro, dezembro

Русский (Russian)
король/королева, река, ладья, правая сторона, радиус, газовая постоянная, 18-я буква англ. алфавита

idioms:

  • the r months    с сентября по апрель

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - décimo octava letra del alfabeto inglés, cualquier sonido representado por la letra R, algo en forma de R

2.
abbr. - río, torre de ajedrez, derecha, corridas, radio, (com) registrado, (elec) resistencia, (fís) roentgen, real, rublo, rabino, vía ferroviaria, raro, (com) recibido, receta, residencia, goma, (béisbol) corridas
symb. - (quím) radio, (estadística) coeficiente de correlación

1.
n. - decimooctava letra del alfabeto inglés

idioms:

  • the r months    temporada de ostras

2.
abbr. - rey/reina, río, torre de ajedrez, rabino, radical, vías ferroviarias, rector, redactor, (pol) Republicano, respuesta, rublo, Réaumur
symb. - (quím) radical, (mat) razón, relación, tamaño regular (vestimenta), (elec) resistencia, (películas) clasificación no apta para menores de 17 años de edad

Svenska (Swedish)
symb. - receptor
abbr. - flod, kunglig, Rumänien, (pol) radikal, rupie, höger, radie

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 字母R

2. 共和国的, 共和政体的, 17岁以上可看的电影, 罗马尼亚

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 字母R

2.
abbr. - 共和國的, 共和政體的, 17歲以上可看的電影, 羅馬尼亞

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 알파벳의 제18번째 자 'r, ', r자 모양(의 것)

idioms:

  • the R months    9월부터 다음해 4월까지의 8개월

2.
abbr. - resistance(저항), royal(왕의), ruble(루블)
symb. - radius(반지름)

1.
n. - 알파벳의 제18번째 자 'R', R자 모양(의 것), 엑스선

2.
abbr. - radium(라듐)
symb. - regular army(정규군)

日本語 (Japanese)
abbr. - アール, R字形のもの

idioms:

  • the r months    冬の間は,

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(علامه) الحرف الثامن من الابجديه الأنجليزيه (اختصار) شي على صورة حرف ر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮האות השמונה-עשר באלפבית האנגלי‬
abbr. - ‮ימין, רדיוס‬
symb. - ‮התנגדות (בחשמל)‬
n. - ‮האות השמונה-עשר באלפבית האנגלי‬
abbr. - ‮ימין, רדיוס, נהר, סימן מסחרי רשום, צריח (שחמט), רב, מלך, מלכה, דירוג סרטים (מוגבל למבוגרים)‬
symb. - ‮תחנת רכבת/מסילת ברזל, התנגדות (בחשמל), דירוג סרטים (מוגבל למבוגרים), רב, רנטגן‬


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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Celtic Mythology. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Copyright © James MacKillop 1998, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "R" Read more
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