An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/reiben

by Friedrich Kluge

reiben, verb, ‘to rub, scratch, scour,’ from the equivalent Middle High German rîben, Old High German rîban, for an older *wrîban, whence French riper, ‘to scrape’; compare Low German wrîven, Dutch wrijven, ‘to rub.’ The Teutonic root wrī̆b has not yet been found in the other Aryan languages.