Word.ws English Dictionary

R-rated

R-rated adjective: of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from one more motion picture rating authorities, typically meaning it is suitable only for adults.

Adjective

R-rated (not comparable)

  1. Of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from one more motion picture rating authorities, typically meaning it is suitable only for adults.
  2. (US) Of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), meaning it is suitable only for adults.
    • In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club
  3. (broadly) Not suitable for children, especially due to involving excessive sexual, violent, or rude content
    • A day’s notes are routinely R-rated. “Usually tense relationships are moderated by ritualized greetings and a genital grab,” she said.2017 March, Jennifer S. Holland, “For These Monkeys, It’s a Fight for Survival”, in National Geographic

Synonyms of R-rated

Origin of R-rated

From R + rated. The R-rating (short for restricted) is part of the rating scale used by the U.S. film rating authority Motion Picture Association (MPA) or similar rating scales used by authorities in some other countries.

Questions about R-rated

What does R-rated mean?
R-rated means of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from one more motion picture rating authorities, typically meaning it is suitable only for adults.
What part of speech is R-rated?
R-rated is an adjective.

Words near R-rated in the dictionary

  1. R-pentominoes
  2. R-principle
  3. r-process
  4. r-processes
  5. R-R
  6. R-rated
  7. R-Rs
  8. r-selection
  9. R-shaped
  10. r-slur
  11. r-slurred

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: R-rated (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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Cite this entry: “R-rated.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/r-rated. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.