Etymology

Uncertain. Perhaps from Common Slavic rĕzati ("shorten"), but this presents phonetic difficulties. Another possibility may be a Latin root *retizāre ("cut branches hanging above water") < retae, or *retundiāre (compare French rogner), or from Greek αίρετίζω ("to choose"). Starting with the meaning of "cutting tree branches" and therefore extending it to "cleaning", it could also be based on a variant of a hypothetical verb *neteza, from Latin *nitidiāre < nitidus (compare Romanian neted, netezi); see also the relation between necheza and râncheza. ^[1]