Word.ws English Dictionary

pre-rhotic

pre-rhotic is the alternative spelling of prerhotic.

Meaning of prerhotic

Adjective

prerhotic (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Occurring before the letter ⟨r⟩ or before any one of the sounds that letter tends to represent (e.g., [r], [ɽ], [ɹ], [ɻ], [ʀ], [ʁ], etc.).
    • While /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ lost their distinctiveness in pre-rhotic, tautosyllabic positions, the basic distinction back ~ front was maintained in forms such as the following: fern [fɛɹn], General IrE [fərn]; turn [tʌɹn], General IrE [tərn].1986, Raymond Hickey, “Possible phonological parallels between Irish and Irish English”, in English World-Wide, VII, № 1, page 9, § 1.6.2

Questions about pre-rhotic

What is pre-rhotic the alternative spelling of?
Pre-rhotic is the alternative spelling of prerhotic.

Words near pre-rhotic in the dictionary

  1. pre-renders
  2. pre-resurrection
  3. pre-resurrectional
  4. pre-revolution
  5. pre-revolutionary
  6. pre-rhotic
  7. pre-roll
  8. pre-Roman
  9. pre-Romanesque
  10. pre-salt layer
  11. Pre-Samnite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pre-rhotic (page history and authors); prerhotic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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