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rice

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

4 characters

Language

English

word origin

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "rice", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "rice" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "rice" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

rice is aEnglishnoun. It means: Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food. Pronounced /ɹaɪs/. It ranks #2,758 in English word frequency. Often confused with rid and Rio.

Key facts for rice
PropertyValue
Headwordrice
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ɹaɪs/
Letters4
Frequency rank#2,758
Misspellings tracked5
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of rice in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for rice is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹaɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,758 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for rice, with forms such as "irce", "rcie", and "ricce". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "rid", "Rio", "rip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: 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 com… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is rice, spelled R-I-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.
  2. 2
    A specific variety of this plant.
  3. 3
    The seeds of this plant used as food.
  4. 4
    The types of automobile modifications characteristic of a rice burner.
  5. 5
    An instance of customization of a user interface.

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 ultimately from Old Tamil 𑀅𑀭𑀺𑀘𑀺 (arici). Doublet of arroz.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: irce,rcie,ricce,riec,rrice

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for rice

Misspelling Variants of "rice"

irce4rcie4ricce5riec4rrice5
Misspelling Variants of "rice"

Frequency rank: #2,758 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "rice"?
"rice" is spelled R-I-C-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ɹaɪs/.
What does "rice" mean?
As a noun, "rice" means: Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.
What words are commonly confused with "rice"?
"rice" is commonly confused with "rid", "Rio", "rip". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "rice"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rice" is /ɹaɪs/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "rice"?
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. Theori... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.