pastry

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pastree, also pastre,^[2] formed from English paste + -ry,^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} probably after Old French pastaierie (“pastry”), from pastaier (“pastry cook”).^{[7][8][10][11][2][4]} The OED dates Middle French pastoierie and pastaierie to 1316 and 1317, and gives as a second possible source Medieval Latin pasteria (“kneading trough; bakery”), formed from pasta with a suffix;^[3] Barnhart thinks the Medieval Latin word was borrowed in some instances.^[2][12] paste is from Old French paste (“dough, pastry”), from Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake, paste”), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “barley porridge”).^[4][13] Johnson had derived the word from French pastisserie.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dough of flour moistened with water or milk: 1442, in the records of the Carpenters' Company of London.^[3] Barnhart and Etymonline give the first sense as food made of paste or dough,^[2][4] not at first limited to sweet things.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the older English word for pastry was paste, which survives as a technical term, and that pastry first meant articles made of paste, coming to mean the dough itself only in the mid-19th century;^[11] the Shorter Oxford likewise calls the dough sense rare before the 19th century.^[7] The collective sense of pies and tarts is recorded from 1526, the art of pastry-making from before 1516, and a place where pastry is made from about 1527.^[3] A single cake or confection of pastry is dated 1708 by the OED,^[3] and 1906 by Etymonline.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "the act of making pies" and "pies or baked paste".^[14] Pastry cook is recorded from the 1650s.^[4] In British slang pastry was used of attractive young women from 1903, and in London black slang it was a verb, to roll a cannabis cigarette.^[15]

Timeline

• 1442 – pastre, pastry dough.^[3][2]
• 1449 – pastree.^[2]
• before 1516 – the art of making pastry.^[3]
• 1526 – pies and tarts collectively.^[3]
• c. 1527 – a place where pastry is made.^[3]
• 1650s – pastry cook.^[4]
• 1708 – a single cake or confection of pastry.^[3]
• 1903 – slang, attractive young women.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dough of flour, fat and water, used to make the base and crust of pies and tarts: Roll the pastry thinly before lining the dish.^[16][7][3]
2. Baked foods made with this dough, especially sweet ones, taken together.^[16][6][3]
3. A single cake or small pie made with this dough: We had coffee and a pastry.^[16][6][3]
4. The art of making pastry.^[3][7]
5. (obsolete) A place where pastry is made.^[6][3]

Word family

• Danish pastry
• French pastry
• puff pastry

Related words

• paste
• pasta
• pasty
• patisserie

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins