RI

The word “RI” means the initials once used by a British monarch after their name, standing for the Latin for "king-emperor" or "queen-empress" (used 1877-1947). In plain terms, a term with several unrelated technical uses: a royal title abbreviation, a Korean distance unit, and a music syllable.

“RI” is pronounced ree (/ɹiː/ in IPA).

Here is “RI” used in a sentence: “The old map marked the distance to the temple as ten ri.”

“RI” is a noun.

The word “RI” comes from Latin. The monarchical sense is from Latin rex imperator / regina imperatrix; the distance sense comes from Korean 리 (ri), ultimately from Chinese 里 (lǐ).

“RI” is an uncommon word in modern English.

“RI” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the initials once used by a British monarch after their name, standing for the Latin for "king-emperor" or "queen-empress" (used 1877-1947).

As a royal title, RI stood for the Latin for "king-emperor" or "queen-empress" and was used after a British monarch's name from 1877 to 1947. As a unit of distance, ri is a traditional Korean measurement equal to roughly 393 meters, an entirely unrelated use of the same two letters.

One ri is about 393 meters, which works out to roughly a quarter of a mile. It is a traditional unit rather than one used in modern metric measurement.

In solfège, re is the plain second note of a major scale, while ri is the syllable used for that same note raised, or sharped. The two syllables let singers distinguish the natural and altered forms of the second scale degree.