SHAPE: During 520-480 a.e.v. the western group of ancient city-states used the R shape which through Southern Italy colonies reached the Etruscans and Romans, ending up at your keyboard!

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SOUND: Initially /r/ was accompanied by a /h/ sound. There was a reminiscence of it at the hellenistic use of the daseia breathing mark over all initial rhos! (this was the ONLY consonant to get a breathing mark!) Also, english, french and other european languages, pay 'tribute' to that archaic /h/ by retaining it in their orthography. In the greek context of phonological evolution it became our familiar [r] quite early. (Rolled as in scottish or spanish.)

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NAME: ETYMOLOGY: From northsemitic (phoenician): reš or rōš = (the) head.
NAME: SPELLING: The hellenistic orthography was P with an omega, pronounced [ro]. The daseia breathing mark reminded the already lost /h/. Today, its simplified orthography is Po.

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GRAMMAR: In old greek, when two Rho occurred within a word, the first would get a psile and the second a daseia. I did not remember that, until I found a letter, written by my grandfather, Odysseus Sarris, who was born c.1896. He signed our family name: Σαῤῥῆς.

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COMBINATIONS: none
DOUBLED: sometimes double occurrence within a word. <ρρ> was pronounced [rr] till the middle times. Not pronounced as double in modern greek.

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MORE GREEK WORDS STARTING WITH RHO
•ρεύμα=current(e.g. of water) rheumatologist