three Rs

• three R's

From the initial consonant in the pronunciation of reading, (w)riting, (a)rithmetic (aphetically), 1820s.

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the three Rs pl (plural only)

1. The basic education received in primary schools, especially (but not necessarily limited to) reading, writing and arithmetic.
   • 1875, Louisa M Alcott, chapter 8, in Eight Cousins‎:

     “You shall teach me, and when I am a woman we will set up a school where nothing but the three R's shall be taught, and all the children live on oatmeal, and the girls have waists a yard round,” said Rose, with a sudden saucy smile dimpling her cheeks.

   • 1885 July, “A Forgotten Pamphleteer”, in Tinsleys’ Magazine, volume 37, London: Tinsley Brothers, page 84:

     From these studies the schoolmaster would sally forth into his school-rooms, and instruct his boys in the religion, the fanaticism of Hugolatry. He taught them nothing else. Hugo was for him the three R’s, catechism and grammar, deportment and the use of the globe.

   • 1908, Charles W. Hattersley, Uganda by Pen and Camera, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States: Union Press, pages vii–viii:

     Elementary schools have already done a noble work, but among many of them the demand has now arisen for something more than the three R’s and simple Bible-teaching.

2. (by extension) The basic precepts of any subject matter.
   • 2002, Barbara Coloroso, Kids are Worth It!: Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline:

     Chapter 11: The Big C and the Three Rs: Chores, Relaxation, Recreation, and Rebellion

3. (sustainability) Reduce, reuse and recycle.

• the three Rs on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “the three Rs”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

• Herters