r
/ɑː(ɹ)/
"r" is a 1-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“r” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #449) as a character. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #449
- frequency rank, English
- 21,470
- “R” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, called ar and written in the Latin script.
Corpus desk
Index EN-r · r · English
r · rank #449 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #449
- LEN-SHORT 1 letters
- VOW-0 0 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 21,470
- PHOTO-FINISH question
Nearest frequency peer: question (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “r”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- months
months
99,555 corpus weight
- move
move
99,554 corpus weight
- question
question
99,553 corpus weight
- r
r
99,552 corpus weight
- series
series
99,551 corpus weight
- wait
wait
99,550 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “r” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | r |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Character |
| IPA | /ɑː(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 1 |
| Frequency rank | #449 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “r” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for r is neighbouring look-alikes ("re", "RS", …), not just typos; it is acharacter pronounced /ɑː(ɹ)/. Frequency #449 among 21,470 “R” headwords. Gloss: "The eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, called ar and written in the Latin script.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for r, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "re", "RS", "rd", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Old English lower case letter r, from 7th century replacement by Latin lower case r of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letter ᚱ. The correct English form is r, spelled R.
Definition
- 1The eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, called ar and written in the Latin script.
Etymology
Old English lower case letter r, from 7th century replacement by Latin lower case r of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letter ᚱ.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.