Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cereal grass (Oryza sativa) that is cultivated extensively in warm climates for its edible grain.
  • noun The starchy grain of this plant, used as a staple food throughout the world.
  • transitive verb To sieve (food) to the consistency of rice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The grain of the rice-plant.
  • noun The rice-plant, Oryza sativa.
  • noun Rice produced in India.
  • noun A collapsible hexagonal reel upon which a hank of yarn is placed for winding on a bobbin.
  • noun Another spelling of rise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A well-known cereal grass (Oryza sativa) and its seed. This plant is extensively cultivated in warm climates, and the grain forms a large portion of the food of the inhabitants. In America it grows chiefly on low, moist land, which can be overflowed.
  • noun (Bot.) See under Ant.
  • noun (Bot.) See Amelcorn.
  • noun a tall reedlike water grass (Zizania aquatica), bearing panicles of a long, slender grain, much used for food by North American Indians. It is common in shallow water in the Northern States. Called also water oat, Canadian wild rice, etc.
  • noun any species of an American genus (Oryzopsis) of grasses, somewhat resembling rice.
  • noun (Zoöl.) Same as Ricebird.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the Florida gallinule.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a large dark-colored field mouse (Calomys palistris) of the Southern United States.
  • noun a kind of thin, delicate paper, brought from China, -- used for painting upon, and for the manufacture of fancy articles. It is made by cutting the pith of a large herb (Fatsia papyrifera, related to the ginseng) into one roll or sheet, which is flattened out under pressure. Called also pith paper.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the bobolink.
  • noun a drink for invalids made by boiling a small quantity of rice in water.
  • noun (Med.) a liquid, resembling rice water in appearance, which is vomited, and discharged from the bowels, in cholera.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a small beetle (Calandra oryzæ, or Sitophilus oryzæ) which destroys rice, wheat, and Indian corn by eating out the interior; -- called also black weevil.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable Cereal plants (Oryza sativa) of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.
  • noun A specific variety of this plant.
  • noun uncountable The seeds of this plant used as food.
  • verb to squeeze through a ricer; to mash or make into rice-sized pieces
  • verb to throw rice at a person (usually at a wedding).
  • verb to belittle a government emissary or similar on behalf of a more powerful militaristic state
  • verb to harvest wild rice Zinzania sp.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb sieve so that it becomes the consistency of rice
  • noun grains used as food either unpolished or more often polished
  • noun annual or perennial rhizomatous marsh grasses; seed used for food; straw used for paper
  • noun English lyricist who frequently worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber (born in 1944)
  • noun United States playwright (1892-1967)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French ris, from Old Italian riso, from Latin oryza, from Greek oruza, of Indo-Iranian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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 (vrīhí). 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).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Free Rice! Not for you, silly, for starving people around the world. All you have to do is show your vocabluaric prowess (no shortage of that around here), and you can help end hunger.

    October 19, 2007

  • Neat! And as a bonus, it feeds our word habits! Thanks, uselessness.

    October 19, 2007

  • Cool! Anybody know how high the levels go?

    October 19, 2007

  • Is Condi in trouble? Has she been rendered?

    October 19, 2007

  • I got up to about five bowls or so before I had to stop. Fun, though!

    October 19, 2007

  • There are fifty levels. I couldn't stay consistently above 47.

    October 19, 2007

  • For an interesting conversation about the nature of riceness, see the page white on rice.

    October 29, 2007

  • Captured at Yorktown, "29 barrels rice, 1,500 lb."

    October 29, 2007

  • Don't feel bad, uselessness, it's supposedly very rare for anyone to get over 48, much less stay there. 47 seems quite respectable.

    November 3, 2007

  • And I thought Wordie was addictive! I hit 50 on occasion, but then would drop back to the 46 to 48 range. You have to get three right in a row to go up a level, but each miss drops you a level.

    November 3, 2007

  • Hideously addictive. My high was 47, but I'm a dolt. Wonder what their data source is.

    November 3, 2007

  • I worked like a maniac for an hour and finally hit 50. The random feature offered up some duplicates, which I had already learned, don't ya know. :o)

    November 3, 2007

  • "Captured at Yorktown, "29 barrels rice, 1,500 lb."

    Charlie_Bravo, you're incorrigible!! (gotta luv ya 'tho)...

    November 3, 2007

  • They have 60 levels now. What are your scores? And is there really a surprise when you reach 10,000 grains?

    February 15, 2010

  • I’m at 10,000 grains now; it says “You have donated 10000 grains of rice. Wow! Now THAT is impressive!” and the bowl is empty again. There are a few screen shots of that on the Internets.

    Edit: At 20,000 it says “You have donated 20000 grains of rice.

    Wow! We're speechless!”

    February 17, 2010