rice
/ɹaɪs/noun, verb
rice is spelled R-I-C-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 35 times per million words in written English, the 2,725th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, rice means “Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of rice is rices.
How many letters and syllables are in rice?
| Letters | 4: R-I-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 35 times per million words; the 2,725th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is rice?
Rice appears 35 times per million words in written English, the 2,725th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce rice?
- /ɹaɪs/
Rice has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-rice.ogg, En-uk-rice.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with rice
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: rise.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with rice?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as rice.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: eric, icer, cire.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of rice
- rices plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- ricing participle, present
- riced participle, past
- rise
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does rice mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.
- 2
A specific variety of this plant.
- 3
The seeds of this plant used as food.
- 4
The seeds of wild rice, used as food.
- 5
slangThe types of automobile modifications characteristic of a rice burner.
- 6
slangAn instance of customization of a user interface.
This is my first rice!
- 7
IrelandScotlandA twig or stick.
- 8
obsoleteA bobbin or spool.
verb
- 1
To squeeze through a ricer; to mash or make into rice-sized pieces (especially potatoes).
- 2
To harvest wild rice (Zizania spp.)
- 3
rareTo throw rice at a person (usually at a wedding).
- 4
To customize the user interface of a computer system, e.g. a desktop environment. (derived from rice out)
noun
- 1
Acronym of rest, ice, compression, elevation (“a treatment method for soft-tissue injuries”).
- 2
Acronym of rest, immobilization, cold, elevation (“a treatment method for soft-tissue injuries”).
- 3
Acronym of reaction, initial, change, equilibrium (“a tabular system for keeping track of changing concentrations in an equilibrium reaction”).
- 4
Acronym of reciprocating internal combustion engine.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Rice in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense plants:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does rice come from?
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 have 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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).