Rice Definition

rīs

riced, rices, ricing

noun

An aquatic cereal grass (esp. Oryza sativa) grown widely in warm climates, esp. in East Asia.

Webster's New World

The starchy seeds or grains of this grass, used as food.

Webster's New World

A specific variety of this plant.

Wiktionary

Synonyms:

verb

To put (soft foods, as cooked potatoes) through a ricer.

Webster's New World

To throw rice at a person (usually at a wedding).

Wiktionary

To belittle a government emissary or similar on behalf of a more powerful militaristic state.

Wiktionary

To harvest wild rice Zinzania sp.

Wiktionary

abbreviation

(medicine) Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation; treatment method for soft tissue injuries.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Rice

Singular:

rice

Plural:

Middle English rys, from Old French ris, from Old Italian riso, risi, from Byzantine Greek ὄρυζα (óryza), ὄρυζον (óryzon). This is usually held to be a borrowing from Old Iranian (cf. Old Persian brizi, Pashto wrižē, Kurdish birinc), in turn probably borrowed from Sanskrit व्रीहि (vrÄ«hí). The Sanskrit term is either a loan from Dravidian - compare Proto-Dravidian *wariñci (“rice") - or, according to Witzel, borrowed from an unknown South Asian, possibly Austroasiatic, source, with the Dravidian word being an independent borrowing of another variant. Old Tamil அரிசி (arici), from earlier *ariki, is not the source of the Greek word, however, according to Krishnamurti (2003) apud Witzel (2009). In contrast, Witzel (1999) had maintained, following Southworth (1979), that the Greek term goes back to Old Tamil arici - itself from an older form *ariki, an early (ca. 1500 BC) borrowing from Munda according to Southworth (1988).

From Wiktionary
Middle English from Old French ris from Old Italian riso from Latin oryza from Greek oruza of Indo-Iranian origin

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition