Etymologically
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pasta

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈpæs.tə/, US /ˈpɑː.stə/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian pasta (“paste, dough”),[2][3][4][5] from Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake, paste”) (see paste),[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “barley porridge”), probably first a salted mess of food, from an adjective meaning sprinkled or salted, from πάσσω (pássō, “to sprinkle”),[3] from Proto-Indo-European *kwet- (“to shake”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Italian dough foods: 1673 in the OED, 1827 in Merriam-Webster, 1874 in Barnhart and Etymonline, where it is an Italian word in a book about Rome.[6][4][2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was not common in English until after the Second World War.[3]

Timeline

  • 1673 – pasta.[6]
  • 1874 – an Italian word in a book about Rome.[2]
  • after 1945 – in common use.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A dough of wheat flour and water, often with egg, shaped into forms such as spaghetti or macaroni and boiled.
  2. A dish made mainly of pasta.

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press