Rice
Middle English: from Old French ris, from Italian riso, from Greek oruza .
wiktionary
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 blnj(*brinǰ). Theorized to come to Iranian languages from Sanskrit व्रीहि(vrīhi).
Prior to Sanskrit, it is speculated to be either a borrowing from a Dravidian language (compare Proto-Dravidian *wariñci(“rice”)), or from Austroasiatic languages further east.
From Middle English ris, rys, from Old English hrīs(“branch; twig”), from Proto-Germanic *hrīsą(“bush; twig”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreys-(“to turn; bend; wind; move; shake”). Cognate with Scots reise, rice(“twigs; brushwood”), West Frisian riis, rys, Dutch rijs(“little branch; twig; osier; whip”), German Low German Ries, German Reis(“twig; sprig; shoot”), Swedish ris(“twigs; brush; rod”), Icelandic hrís.
etymonline
rice (n.)
mid-13c., ris, "edible seeds or grains of the rice plant, one of the world's major food grains," from Old French ris, from Italian riso, from Latin oriza, from Greek oryza "rice," via an Indo-Iranian language (compare Pashto vriže, Old Persian brizi), ultimately from Sanskrit vrihi-s "rice."
The Greek word, directly or in indirectly, is the source of the European words for the grain (Welsh reis, German reis, Lithuanian ryžiai, Serbo-Croatian riza, Polish ryż, etc.). Evidence of semi-cultivated rice in Thailand dates to 5,500 years ago; introduced to the Mediterranean by the Arabs, it was introduced 1647 in the Carolinas.
Rice paper (1810), originally used in China, Japan, etc., is made from straw of rice; the name is sometimes misapplied to a delicate white film prepared from the pith of a certain East Asian shrub. Rice-pudding is by 1889. Rice Krispies is from 1936.
