Dictionary

prerhotic en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per- Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-i Proto-Indo-European *préh₂i? Proto-Italic *prai Proto-Italic *prai- Latin prae-lbor. Middle English pre- English pre- English rhotacismbf. English rhotic English prerhotic From pre- + rhotic.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable, 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.).
   • 1993 Summer, Ralph H. Emerson, “The Distribution of Eighteenth-Century Prerhotic O-Phonemes in Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary” in American Speech LXVIII, № 2, pages 115–138
   • We turn now to the prerhotic context in (15)–(17). 2001, James Harris, “Spanish Negative in-: Morphology, Phonology, Semantics”, chapter 5 in Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. Michael J. Kenstowicz, MIT Press (hbk) (pbk), page 179
   • 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:

Forms