three R's

American  

plural noun

1. reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, regarded as the fundamentals of education.

2. the fundamentals, basic knowledge, or skills of any system or field.

   the three R's of good government.

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three Rs British  

plural noun

1. the three skills regarded as the fundamentals of education; reading, writing, and arithmetic

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three R's Idioms  

1. The fundamentals of education, as in It's a terrible school; the children are not even taught the three R's. It is widely believed that Sir William Curtis, an alderman who became Lord Mayor of London, once presented a toast to the three R's—reading, riting, and rithmetic—thereby betraying his illiteracy. In any event, the term was picked up by others and so used from the early 1800s on.

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Etymology

Origin of three R's

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

Gasca has three two-way players who have been three-year starters and is calling them the three R’s — Rashawn Jackson, Robert Lamar and Romeo Signore.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 8, 2022

The three R’s - reading, writing and arithmetic - are, or once were, considered the foundations of a basic skills-oriented education program.

From Washington Times • Nov. 15, 2017

And they also encouraged following the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle.

From Washington Post • Dec. 11, 2014

The truth: They specialise in indie's three R's: jolly, jaunty joy.

From The Guardian • Feb. 7, 2013

Remarkably, the three R’s of gene physiology are acutely dependent on the molecular structure of DNA—on the Watson-Crick base pairing of the double helix.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee