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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  

/ 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. ⁵ 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 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

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

“Nancy, you r loved and our angel,” says another.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026

All togethe r, Pfizer and its peers seem to have come out far better than expected from the Trump administration’s pricing and tariff gambits.

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2025

She pronounced it, as she thought, in the French way, monosyllabically, but without quite getting her tongue round the r.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

Greater relative abundance of both R inulinivorans and R intestinalis was also associated with better performance on the leg press and bench press.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

A higher sustainable growth rate lifts the economy’s equilibrium interest rate, or what’s known as R*.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026

Test your knowledge of the English language: How many words can you create with the letters P, Y, C, R, O, and T?

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026

"But now, even an editor of repute and an acclaimed journalist like R Rajagopal has been denied his right to vote," he wrote on X.

From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026

The R dwarfed the other letters, the tail of it ran down into the cambric, away from the laced edge.

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

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

From Washington Times ● Apr. 28, 2021

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

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 26, 2011

Now a professor at the Royal Roads University in Victoria, Canada, he says he, too, happened upon a couple of bats nestled in N. r. elongata pitchers, but he "never put two and two together."

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 26, 2011

It can turn 3,000 r. p. m., make 90 m. p. h. with a gear ratio slightly above normal.

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

One reader, Quinn R., said he has “gambled” about $1 million in several pre-IPO platforms and deal structures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

District Judge Christopher R. Cooper’s ruling that the law “makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

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

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

"Evolution has effectively run the same experiment over and over again across different groups of arthropods," says R. Antonio Gomez, postdoctoral scholar in A&S' Department of Biology and lead author of the study.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026

Representative James R. Mann of Illinois came from his hospital bed in Baltimore, where he had been for six months, so that he could vote yes.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

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

Anti-terror prosecutor Jean-François Ricard said that Armand R's mother had raised concerns about his behaviour although there was no evidence at the time to take further measures against him.

From BBC ● Dec. 5, 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

In the foreword, J. Drew Lanham writes, “… they provide a large step forward in the Three R’s Process: to recognize, reconcile, and repair.”

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 1, 2023

That was the way my mind lurched and stumbled, among the sharp R's and T's, sliding over the ovoid vowels as if on pebbles.

From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

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

There are plenty of Rs in the mix, and we’re glad to have new allies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025

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

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2025

When Mr. MacMahon said words like terrible he made it sound like they had seven or eight Rs in ’em ’stead of just one.

From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis

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

Rolling his rs, the Rev. Peter Marshall, Scottish-born chaplain of the U.S.

From Time Magazine Archive

Do you involve the surfe rs and the people in the movie in editing their sections in the movie?

From Time Magazine Archive

Two years ago Promoter Vandeburg talked Fair managers into selling their Big Show rs a peg on which to hang a national campaign of travel to eleven far-western States instead of merely plugging San Francisco.

From Time Magazine Archive

And I remember something I learned in school, a trabalenguas, tongue twister, with lots of rs: Rápido rápido corren los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril.

From "Beast Rider" by Tony Johnston & María Elena Fontanot de Rhoads