hard r

== English == === Alternative forms === hard R, hard-r === Noun === hard r (plural hard r's) (phonetics, phonology, informal) A rhotic sound which is emphatic or strongly enunciated; in English accents especially a postvocalic consonantal r, as distinguished from its absence in a nonrhotic accent or from an R-coloured vowel. (chiefly US) The hard r at the end of the word nigger when spoken with a General American accent and considered more offensive than the African-American Vernacular English pronunciation conventionally spelled nigga, whose final sound is sometimes called soft a.