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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

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

Analysts require “sophisticated artificial intelligence models that can digest mammoth amounts of open-source and clandestinely acquired information,” CIA director William Burns r ecently wrote in Foreign Affairs.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2024

And the r after the s, that’s one you have to roll on your tongue, like a cat’s purr.

From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri

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

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026

Some juicy wordplay: How many words can you make with the letters N, U, E, P, G, and R?

From Slate ● Aug. 5, 2026

The woman and her partner, identified by authorities as Marine R and Marc B, were arrested in Fatima on Thursday.

From BBC ● May 23, 2026

In 2008, the county put Measure R, a half-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects including the subway extension to Westwood, on the ballot.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026

I asked if we could watch a van Damme movie and they said it was rated R, and also I’m just the treasurer.

From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri

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

From Washington Times ● Apr. 28, 2021

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

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

A newcomer was Indian Motorcycle Co. with a two-cylinder, two-cycle job developing 12 h. p. at 4,500 r. p. m.

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

Ryan worked with Evan R. Kulman of Compass on the listing, while Douglas Elliman agents Paul Brennan and Martha Gundersen helped to secure a buyer for the dwelling.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026

Jackson Walker agreed to pay $15 million to settle a civil case over an undisclosed relationship with former bankruptcy judge David R. Jones.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

While the case was largely managed by assistant U.S. attorney Caelainn Carney, according to court transcripts, Faruqui was aiming his frustration at her bosses, including senior prosecutor Jonathan R. Hornok, and the leadership at DOJ.

From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026

The Dome has long been owned by the family of William R. Forman — the founder of Pacific Theatres — who opened the Dome in 1963.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

I almost begged R. Howard Ridgefield to give up his satire for a while.

From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger

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

Additionally, its interior quality shines over the Golf R’s.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 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

“Well, that’s good. You’d never get ahold of him. He’s watching the TV. You hear that? R’s driving me nuts. My nerves is shot.”

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

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

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

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

Deslorieux has the strongest voice of the main cast, crooning with delicate rolling r’s for her character’s accent.

From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2021

“Bwady,” he called me because he had a hard time with his r’s.

From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings

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

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

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

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

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