Ar

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The eighteenth letter of the alphabet, named by the sound it represents in words such as red and car
2. A consonant letter in the Latin alphabet, usually spelled as the name of the letter R in dictionaries
3. The seventeenth or eighteenth letter of English alphabet, written as the single character that stands for the rhotic sound

Etymology: The letter "r" was not always pronounced in the "ar" sound, which is why this name for the letter looks odd. It is the Translingual name for the letter R, and its spelling reflects the sound English speakers once gave it: a non-rhotic accent, which drops final or pre-consonantal r sounds, would turn "ar" into something close to "ah." The same spelling pattern appears in "lor" and the Korean surname "Park," where the written r marks a sound no longer heard. The name itself is much older than English. It traces back to a Germanic form that was itself shaped by earlier forms of the letter's sound, and it reached English as the standard letter name used in the alphabet. Its plural, "ars," is the form of the same letter name used when spelling out multiple letters or discussing the letter as a plural item.

Synonyms: r