rice

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   sieve so that it becomes the consistency of rice

   rice the potatoes

2. 2
   noun

   Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.

   Rice is a tropical plant; yet Carolina and Georgia grow the finest in the world; heavier grained, better filled, and more merchantable, than any imported into Europe from the Indies.

3. 3
   noun

   A specific variety of this plant.

   The rices of Kashmír are infinite in variety. In one tahsíl I have found fifty-three varieties.

4. 4
   noun

   The seeds of this plant used as food.

   Mold boiled rice, when hot, in cups which have been previously dipped in cold water; when cold, turn them out on a flat dish, arranging them uniformly; then with a tea-spoon scoop out a little of the rice from the top of each cone, and put in its place any kind of jelly.

5. 5
   noun

   An instance of customization of a user interface.

   This is my first rice!

6. 6
   verb

   To squeeze through a ricer; to mash or make into rice-sized pieces (especially potatoes).

   Riced Potato. Have a flat dish and the colander hot. With a spoon, rub mashed potato through the colander on to the hot dish.

7. 7
   verb

   To harvest wild rice (Zizania spp.)

   In northern Minnesota the whites have invented the verb "to rice," and speak of "ricing," i. e., harvesting the crop of wild rice.

8. 8
   verb

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

   So far as I can make out, the idiotic function of “ricing” English brides and bridegrooms is not twenty years old.

Etymology

From Middle English rys, from Old French ris, from Old Italian riso, risi, from Byzantine Greek ὄρυζα (óruza), from an Eastern Iranian language related to Middle Persian blnc (*brinǰ), Northern Kurdish riz (beyond Euphrates) and Zazaki riz. Theorized to come to Iranian languages from Sanskrit व्रीहि (vrīhi). Prior to Sanskrit, it is speculated to be possibly a borrowing from a Dravidian language (compare Proto-Dravidian *wariñci (“rice”)), or from Austroasiatic languages further east. Alternatively Byzantine Greek ὄρυζα (óruza) is said to be from Hebrew אורז (órez), from South Arabian areez ul…