wild rice
4
3.3
- noun
- /waɪld raɪs/
- US
:
arroz salvaje
- The Ojibway believe that their hand-harvested wild rice will always be superior to the cultivated product.
- harvest wild rice
- wild rice soup
- wild rice blend
Examples
-
There I ordered wild rice soup and walleye with wild rice on the side.
Academic text (1998) -
But the simple wild rice pilaf that comes with my fish is a revelation.
Academic text (1998) -
And what would you add to wild rice to step up the flavor a bit?
-
The men and I have decided to have roast Long Island duck tonight with wild rice.
-
Finally, she decided on a dish with salmon and wild rice.
Fiction book (2000) -
OK what about chicken and wild rice chowder?
-
The chicken was in the oven, and the wild rice had just been added to the boiling water on the stove.
Fiction book (1996) -
At the head table, Ed has finished his chicken breast stuffed with wild rice pilaf.
Fiction book (1994) -
The wild rice soup is very good, although I don't see any big difference in flavor.
Academic text (1998) -
For dinner, I prepared a healthy salad with wild rice and fresh vegetables.
Synonyms
A grain that grows in lakes and rivers and is eaten like rice
A water grass in North America that grows edible grains called wild rice
A group of tall water grasses whose seeds people eat as wild rice
A water grass that makes edible seeds called wild rice
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a type of rice that grows in the wild' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'wild' (not domesticated) with 'rice' (the grain), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to non-cultivated rice. This simple modifier+noun composition is cross-linguistically common and follows basic English noun phrase patterns, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun wild rice comes from a clear picture: long, dark seeds that grow in lakes and rivers instead of on farms. People in canoes would knock the seeds into the boat when they harvested them, so it was called wild, because it grew in the wild, and rice, because the seeds look like rice, and today wild rice means that water-grown grain used as 'food'.