ὄρυζα

Forms

ὄρυζᾰ (óruza) f (genitive ὀρύζης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a borrowing from an Eastern Iranian language,^[2][3][4] ultimately from Proto-Iranian *wriHǰíš or *wrinǰiš.^[1][5] The nearest attested relative is Pashto وريژې (wriže, “rice”);^[2][3][1] Sanskrit व्रीहि (vrīhí-, “rice”) belongs to the same group, but the earlier history of the word is unknown.^[2][4] Beekes and Babiniotis connect it also with ὀρίνδης (oríndēs), a kind of bread or sweet made with rice flour.^[2][6]

Rosół lists it among rejected Semitic etymologies: Masson held that it could come from Semitic as easily as from Iranian, but the Aramaic and Hebrew words for rice are themselves borrowed from Greek.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the historians of Alexander's campaigns and of India in the 4th century BC, Aristobulus and Megasthenes, quoted by Strabo, meaning rice, both the plant and the grain.^[7][2] Megasthenes describes boiled rice as the food of the Indians.^[7][2][5][8]

Semantic evolution

Theophrastus has the neuter form ὄρυζον (óruzon).^[7][3] The word stayed one for an eastern crop: Strabo's sources tie it to India, and Diodorus, Dioscorides, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Galen use it.^[5][9] Aelian mentions a wine made from rice.^[7] Derivatives include the diminutive ὀρύζιον (orúzion), ὀρυζίτης (oruzítēs) for a rice cake, and Strabo's ὀρυζοτροφέω (oruzotrophéō) “to grow rice”.^[3][4]

It passed into Latin as oryza.^[10][11] From the Latin word, through Italian riso and Old French ris, comes English rice; directly or indirectly the Greek word is the source of the European words for the grain.^[11] In Greek the late diminutive ὀρύζιον (orúzion) lost its unstressed first vowel and became medieval and Modern Greek ρύζι (rízi), the everyday word.^[12][6] Beside it Modern Greek keeps the learned όρυζα (óriza) and compounds such as ορυζώνας (oryzónas, “rice field”).^[12][6][13]

Timeline

• 4th century BC – Aristobulus and Megasthenes, writing on India, use it for rice.^[7][2][8]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus has the neuter ὄρυζον (óruzon).^[7][8]
• 1st century BC – Diodorus Siculus uses it.^[9][8]
• 1st century BC to 1st century AD – Strabo reports what his sources said of rice in India.^[7][5][8]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides describes it among foods and medicines.^[7][9][8]
• Mid-13th century – English rice appears, from Old French, from Italian and Latin.^[11]
• Modern Greek – The everyday word is ρύζι (rízi), from the late diminutive, while όρυζα (óryza) is learned.^[12][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Rice, Oryza sativa, both the plant and the grain.^[7][2][3]

Related words

• ὄρυζον (óruzon)
• ὀρίνδης (oríndēs)
• Latin oryza
• English rice

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
4. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
6. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
9. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr