Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Water which has been thickened with the substance of rice by boiling. It is administered as a drink to the sick, either plain, or sweetened and flavored.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Symptom include the sudden onset of severe, painless watery diarrhoea - in some cases 'rice-water' in appearance, vomiting early in the illness and dehydration.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2008

  • I was toying with the idea of giving the baby rice-water instead, when my wife threatened to throw me out of the house.

    father's day: notes for a new dad Dean Francis Alfar 2005

  • I had no skin to my palate for seven weeks after, and lived on rice-water during the rest of the voyage.

    Burlesques 2006

  • I was therefore obliged to give it rice-water from a bottle with a quill in the cork, which after a few trials it learned to suck very well.

    The Malay Archipelago 2004

  • But on going out to the kitchen to prepare fresh rice-water, she became aware that, for all the broiling heat of the day, her hands were numb with cold.

    Ultima Thule 2003

  • I gagged it down with the help of their vile brown rice-water, and then, despite my objections, I and a gang of other unfortunates, all black of course, were herded up through the town, heading inland.

    Flashman's Lady Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1977

  • They force that deadly poison into you, douse you with rice-water to help digestion, and await events - but it ain't enough just to be sick, you know, you must bring up the three pieces of chicken skin as well, and if you do, it's handshakes all round and a tanner from the poor box.

    Flashman's Lady Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1977

  • Barley-water and rice-water are very soothing to an irritable stomach.

    Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners A Complete Sexual Science and a Guide to Purity and Physical Manhood, Advice To Maiden, Wife, And Mother, Love, Courtship, And Marriage B.G. Jefferis

  • In the early stage, or during the "_rice-water_" discharges, and down to the time of collapse, treat the abdomen and thorax with P. P., having N. P., _long cord_, on back of neck -- not too near the head.

    A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication Daniel Clark

  • I have not treated a case of cholera; but my own impression of it is, that in the first stage, or during the "rice-water" discharges, the condition of the system is, as in other acute affections, excessively positive; but that, as the collapse comes on, it rapidly subsides into an intensely negative state, thus assuming the chief characteristic of a chronic condition.

    A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication Daniel Clark

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