Rhotic consonant

A consonant with rhotic quality, typically an r-like sound produced through articulations such as approximation, tapping, trilling, or uvular constriction.

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Approximant: A speech sound made by bringing articulators close together without creating turbulent airflow. Many rhotics, including English /ɹ/, are produced as approximants.
Alveolar approximant: A consonant made by bringing the tongue toward the alveolar ridge without turbulent airflow. English /ɹ/ is commonly realized with an alveolar or postalveolar approximant.
Lateral consonant: A consonant in which airflow passes around one or both sides of the tongue. Laterals and rhotics can share tongue positions but route airflow differently.
Rhoticity in English: The presence or absence of an r-like sound after a vowel in varieties of English. English /r/ varies across dialects in both distribution and articulation.
Rhotics in phonology: The study of how rhotic sounds behave as a class in the sound systems of languages. Their diverse articulations make the boundaries of the rhotic class difficult to state.
Alveolar ridge: The raised area behind the upper front teeth, used as a contact or constriction site in speech. Tongue-tip rhotics often use this place of articulation.
Alveolar tap: A consonant made by a single brief contact of the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge. Spanish intervocalic r is a familiar rhotic tap.
Fricative: A consonant produced by turbulent airflow through a narrow vocal-tract constriction. Many rhotics lack the turbulent airflow that defines fricatives.
Spanish phonology: The sound system and sound-pattern rules of the Spanish language. Spanish contrasts a tap and a trill in words such as pero and perro.
Phonological natural class: A group of speech sounds sharing features that explain common phonological behavior. Rhotics test whether shared behavior requires shared articulatory features.