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arroz

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word arroz

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1400s More words from the 15th century
Borrowed from
Arabic روز
Ultimate origin
Arabic رز

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /aˈʁo(j)s/, [aˈho(ɪ̯)s][1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /aˈʁo(j)ʃ/, [aˈχo(ɪ̯)ʃ][1]
  • Portugal: /ɐˈʁoʃ/[1]

Forms

arroz m (plural arrozes)[1] A private letter of 1633 spells it arros.[2] Sixteenth-century documents from India write aroz and arros.[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic روز (ráwz), which Corriente gives with the article, from Arabic رز (ruzz).[4][1][5][6] The first syllable of the Portuguese word is the Arabic article, assimilated to the following /r/, as in the etymon that Houaiss, Cunha and Machado give.[5][6][7] The same Arabic word gave Spanish arroz, Galician arroz and Catalan arròs, while Occitan ris, French riz and Italian riso come from the Greek word.[4][8]

Wiktionary traces the Arabic word to Ancient Greek ὄρυζα (óruza, “rice”), which Beekes calls a loanword from an Eastern Iranian language, comparing a Pashto word and the Sanskrit word for rice.[1][9] Corriente instead derives the Arabic word directly from a Tamil word for husked rice, brought by the sailors of the Sea of Oman, since the word is not usual in Persian.[4] Dalgado and Houaiss likewise connect the Arabic word with the South Indian word for husked rice, from a root meaning “to clean, separate”.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 15th century.[5][6] Machado quotes a letter of Afonso de Albuquerque of 1510, which lists arrozes among supplies and goods, and Dalgado an order of the viceroy of 1509 about rations of aroz chambaçal, a variety of Indian rice.[7][3]

Semantic evolution

Machado and Nascentes note that it is not known when rice came to Portugal: Nascentes thinks the plant was known in the Peninsula before the Arabs but was only widely grown after their conquest, and Machado quotes Leite de Vasconcelos that its large-scale cultivation in Portugal began in the middle of the 18th century.[7][10] The Portuguese in India named many local varieties, such as chambaçal and giraçal, from Konkani and Marathi words.[3]

The dictionaries from Cardoso (1569) to Folqman (1755) gloss it with Latin oryza.[11][12][13] Morais (1789) describes a floury grain like wheat that grows in marshy places.[14] Popular senses are “money” and, in Brazil, arroz de festa “a person who goes to every party”.[15][16] The word passed into several indigenous languages of Brazil, such as Kaingang aronh and Urubú-Kaapor ahuj.[1]

Timeline

  • 15th century – first records.[5][6]
  • 1509 – aroz chambaçal in an order of the viceroy of India.[3]
  • 1510 – arrozes in a letter of Afonso de Albuquerque.[7]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary has Arroz.[11]
  • 1633 – a private letter spells it arros.[2]
  • 17th century – first record of arrozal “rice field”.[6]
  • 1813 – Morais gives the plural arrozes and the Indian varieties chambaçal and giraçal.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. rice, the cereal plant Oryza sativa, grown in flooded fields.[5][18]
  2. Its grain, used as food.[5][18]
  3. (cooking) A dish made with rice: arroz de pato.[18][16]
  4. (popular) money.[15][16]
  5. (slang) A beating.[15][19]

Word family

  • arrozal
  • arroz-doce
  • arrozeiro
  • arrozeira
  • arroz-agulha
  • rizicultor
  • rizicultura
  • Spanish arroz
  • Arabic رز (ruzz)

Usage notes

Arroz de festa is, in Brazil, a person seen at every social event.[15][16] In Trás-os-Montes arroz is also the name of a variety of bean.[20][21] In Portugal Sabes que mais? Arroz com pardais is a familiar way of ending a discussion.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. arroz
  3. ^ a b c d e Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 57
  4. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. arròs
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. arroz
  6. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. arroz
  7. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. arroz
  8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 360
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. arroz
  11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arroz
  12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arroz
  13. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arroz
  14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 123
  15. ^ a b c d Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. arroz
  16. ^ a b c d e Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. arroz
  17. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 197
  18. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. arroz
  19. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. arroz
  20. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. arroz
  21. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. arroz

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Arroz.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/arroz. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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