Quo War-ran'to or R

[Lat. quo, abl. of qui, who, which, and L. Lat. warrantus, a guaranty, Eng. warrant, q. v.] (Law.) A writ brought before a proper tribunal, to inquire by what warrant a person or corporation exercises certain powers. Blackstone.

An information in the nature of a quo warranto is now commonly resorted to as a substitute for the writ.

Wharton.

R. the eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, is a semi-vowel and a liquid. According to some orthö̤pists, it has two distinct sounds: the one heard at the beginning of words and syllables, and when it is preceded by a consonant, being produced by an expulsion of vocalized breath, the tongue almost touching the palate, or gum, near the front teeth, with a more or less tremulous motion; the other, less decidedly consonantal, heard at the end of words and syllables, and when it is followed by a consonant, being formed by a vibration of the lower part of the tongue, near the root, against the soft palate. The first is heard in ran, free, morose; the second in her, ford, starling. Others regard the second of the two sounds as merely a guttural modification of the first, and not, therefore, essentially differing from it. By most writers, however, no distinction whatever is admitted, the letter r being considered to have one unvarying sound in all cases. See Principles of Pronunciation, §§ 87–89. In words derived from the Greek language, an h is generally written after r, as the representative of the aspirated sound with which this letter was pronounced by the Greeks. It is the same in the Welsh language. But as the letter is not aspirated in English, the h is entirely superfluous, and does not affect the sound of r, as in rhapsody, rheum, rhetoric, which are pronounced rapsody, reum, retoric. In etymology, r is susceptible of numerous interchanges, the most common of which is with l. The Chinese, who can not pronounce r, always use l in its place; the Japanese do precisely the reverse. R is sometimes called the canine letter, from some fancied resemblance which it bears in sound to the snarling of a dog. “R is the dog's letter, and hurreth in the sound.”

B. Jonson.