prerhotic

alternative pre-rhotic

1. not comparablerarehuman sciencesOccurring 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

   2 more examples

   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

   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