Word.ws English Dictionary

rhotacisms

rhotacisms is the plural of rhotacism.

Meaning of rhotacism

Noun

rhotacism (countable and uncountable, plural rhotacisms)

  1. An exaggerated use of the sound of the letter R.
  2. (countable) A linguistic phenomenon in which a consonant changes into an R; rhotacization.
  3. The inability to pronounce the letter R; derhotacization.
    • For example: r’s may become burrs or guttural grunts or w’s or l’s (rhotacism); […]1970, Leland E. Hinsie, Robert Jean Campbell, Psychiatric Dictionary, Oxford University Press, page 711

Questions about rhotacisms

What is rhotacisms the plural of?
Rhotacisms is the plural of rhotacism.

Words near rhotacisms in the dictionary

  1. rhotacise
  2. rhotacised
  3. rhotacises
  4. rhotacising
  5. rhotacism
  6. rhotacisms
  7. rhotacismus
  8. rhotacization
  9. rhotacize
  10. rhotacized
  11. rhotacized vowel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rhotacisms (page history and authors); rhotacism (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “rhotacisms.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rhotacisms. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.