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• r
  r

  the theoretical intrinsic rate of increase of a population, equivalent to the difference between the birth and death rates divided by the number of individuals in the population.
• R
  R

  noun

  the 18th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.
• r.
  r.

  abbreviation

  rabbi.
• R.
  R.

  abbreviation

  (in prescriptions) take.

r

¹ American  

Ecology.

1. the theoretical intrinsic rate of increase of a population, equivalent to the difference between the birth and death rates divided by the number of individuals in the population.

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r ² American  

abbreviation

• rs
  plural

1. radius.

2. Commerce. registered.

3. Electricity. resistance.

4. Physics. roentgen.

5. royal.

6. ruble.

7. rupee.

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R ³ American  

[ahr] / ɑr /

Or r

noun

• R's,
  plural
• Rs,
  plural
• r's,
  plural
• rs
  plural

1. the 18th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.

2. any spoken sound represented by the letter R or r, as in ran, carrot, or rhyme.

3. something having the shape of R .

4. a written or printed representation of the letter R or r.

5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter R or r.

6. three R's.

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R ⁴ American  

[ahr] / ɑr /

verb

1. Informal. are.

   Oysters R in season.

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R ⁵ American  

abbreviation

1. Trademark. restricted: a rating assigned to a movie by the MPA indicating that children under the age of 17 will not be admitted to a theater showing the film unless accompanied by an adult.

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R ⁶ American  

abbreviation

1. Chemistry. radical.

2. Mathematics. ratio.

3. regular: a man's suit or coat size.

4. Electricity. resistance.

5. Theater. stage right.

6. Physics. roentgen.

7. Chess. rook.

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R ⁷ American  

Symbol.

1. the 18th in order or in a series.

2. (sometimes lowercase) the medieval Roman numeral for 80.

3. Biochemistry. arginine.

4. Physics. universal gas constant.

5. registered trademark: written as superscript ® following a name registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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r. ⁸ American  

abbreviation

• rs
  plural

1. rabbi.

2. railroad.

3. railway.

4. range.

5. rare.

6. Commerce. received.

7. recipe.

8. replacing.

9. residence.

10. right.

11. rises.

12. river.

13. road.

14. rod.

15. royal.

16. rubber.

17. ruble.

18. Baseball. run; runs.

19. rupee.

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R. ⁹ American  

Or R.

abbreviation

1. (in prescriptions) take.

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R. ¹⁰ American  

abbreviation

1. rabbi.

2. Radical.

3. radius.

4. railroad.

5. railway.

6. (in South Africa) rand; rands.

7. Réaumur.

8. rector.

9. redactor.

10. regina.

11. Republican.

12. response.

13. rex.

14. river.

15. road.

16. royal.

17. ruble.

18. rupee.

19. Theater. stage right.

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R. ¹ British  

abbreviation

1. registered (trademark)

2. right

3. river

4. rouble

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R. ² British  

abbreviation

1. rabbi

2. rector

3. Regina

4. Republican

5. response (in Christian liturgy)

6. Rex

7. River

8. Royal

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R ³ British  

symbol

1. chem radical

2. currency

   1. rand

   2. rupee

3. Réaumur temperature (scale)

4. physics electronics resistance

5. roentgen or röntgen

6. chess rook

7. Royal

8. chem gas constant

9. 1. restricted exhibition (used to describe a category of film certified as unsuitable for viewing by anyone under the age of 18)

   2. ( as modifier )

      an R film

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r. ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. rare

2. recto

3. Also: r. rod (unit of length)

4. ruled

5. cricket baseball run(s)

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r ⁵ British  

/ ɑː /

noun

1. the 18th letter and 14th consonant of the modern English alphabet

2. a speech sound represented by this letter, in English usually an alveolar semivowel, as in red

3. See three Rs

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r Scientific  

1. Abbreviation of radius

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R Idioms  

1. see three R's.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• R's
  plural
• Rs
  plural
• r's
  plural
• rs
  plural

Etymology

Origin of R⁵

An American designation established in 1968

Origin of R.⁹

From the Latin word recipe

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

r R r. R. R's Rs r's rs

Central banks are likely to welcome higher neutral rates, sometimes referred to as r*.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026

Mark Joseph Stern: This idea of republican virtue, lowercase r, civic virtue, the Framers were obsessed with it.

From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026

In June 2018, Sampath allegedly texted Peng asking, “What r the other opportunities in Lausd. That we can exploit. Any other area.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2026

These risks linger as r ecent resilience in the economy shows signs of fading.

From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2025

And though it’s often seen with a small initial r, it’s supposed to be capitalized as a registered service mark owned by the National Association of Realtors.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

Rated: R, for pervasive language Running time: 2 hours, 8 minutes Playing: Opens Friday, Oct.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026

The work traces back to 2020, when Mitchell, who was then a U of R undergraduate, detected evidence of blood vessels inside Scotty's rib.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 24, 2026

She describes the purpose of the visit as an "off-site meetings with Mr K R Murdoch and other senior executives from News Corp and News UK".

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

At the meeting, Supervisor Steve Lavagnino noted that, in his district, Santa Maria High School is directly across the street from a firearms store called Get R Gun.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

Put the names of shorter works, like poems, stories, and songs, in ordinary type with quotation marks. books: Gone With the Wind magazines: Newsweek n e w s pa p E R s.-

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

For Chicago, Sharon chose avery r. young, a Chicago-born Black poet, composer and activist.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 28, 2021

By tracking only bats collected from N. r. elongata pitchers, he says, Grafe's team may have missed individuals that used other roosting spots and overestimated the importance of pitchers to the species as a whole.

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 26, 2011

As pitcher plants go, N. r. elongata is especially well suited to the bats.

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 26, 2011

It would thus take 2,000 X rays to deliver a presumably damaging 10 r. to a man's gonads.

From Time Magazine Archive

She erected a big white sign in the front yard on which she had carefully painted, in black letters with gold outlines, r. m. walls art studio.

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

The Lincoln is not the only American carrier to face issues during a lengthy time at sea: the USS Gerald R. Ford also suffered various problems during a recent 326-day deployment.

From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026

That unexpected path from military clothing research to agriculture demonstrates the value of collaboration across scientific fields, said co-author R. Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at NC State.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026

Series creator R. Scott Gemmill accepted the award, with several members of the cast and crew on stage behind him.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026

The first time Samantha R. went to Burning Man, it was on a whim.

From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026

The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

From "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling

Also, a radical idea: “We need to ensure that our students are graduating with the right grade level skills of the 4 R’s: reading, writing, arithmetic, and reasoning.”

From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2024

But they’re only permitted to enter because R’s parents live there, and because they have a two-day-old baby in the car.

From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2024

The R's then seized the initiative, with Chair's introduction in place of the injured Jack Colback giving them extra impetus.

From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2023

You’re in such a unique position because vintage dealers are often checking off each box in the three R’s of recycling: reduce, reuse, recycle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2023

Her accent is more pronounced, with the T’s and R’s harder, so I can tell she’s getting annoyed.

From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan

Listening to my 7-year-old nephew sounding out words last week, a dark thought occurred: How long before the three Rs become as outdated among young people as Thomas Guide maps?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

To go American, Mielewska said it's all about getting the Rs and the vowels right.

From Barron's ● Mar. 5, 2026

According to the team, the foundation of a circular space economy lies in the 3 Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2025

My 4-year-old grandson can count the three Rs in strawberry.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2025

It was a note, and it read: New CC was testing for undetected Ys, Os, Rs.

From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken

New England is ready to absorb Scotland as its seventh state as soon as the Scots agree to stop pronouncing their r’s.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026

Leto’s grumbling Brit-inflected baritone is an unrecognizable concoction of trilled r’s and plummy vowels — and the best performance he’s done in years.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

Her accent clipped off the final r's, making the words come out "remembah" and "ovah."

From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2023

Ms. Walters, who died Dec. 30 at her home in New York, according to ABC, spent the following decades overcoming her mangled r’s and became one of television’s premier interrogators of the newsworthy.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 30, 2022

I can still remember her Portuguese accent, the way she rolled her r’s.

From "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio

There's a lot of spoken dialogue and I was doing my best to not sound too horribly American - - to soften my rs and elongate my vowels.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 8, 2012

Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs will each get $4 million for their work in fine-tuning the financial details of the Chemical-Manufacture rs Hanover deal.

From Time Magazine Archive

Submissions will be reviewed by an esteemed panel of former Showdown winners, photo edito rs and industry leaders, and voted on by ballot to determine the top 5 invited artists.

From Time Magazine Archive

His farewell is unique among the oth rs all around him for its detachment.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then came the Old Bear with the main force, Ser Mallador Locke with the baggage train and packhorses, and finally Ser Ottyn Wythe rs and the rear guard.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin