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Etymology and origin of the English word pasty

pasty1 meat pie

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1300 Havelok the Dane
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman paste via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Late Latin pasta

Pronunciation

Etymology

The word for the meat pie is inherited from Middle English pastē, also pastei and pasti,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman paste and Old French pasté, also pastée,[4][5][6] now French pâté.[5][7][8] The Old French noun is derived from the Old French word for dough or pastry, from Late Latin pasta (“paste”);[7][8][5][9] Barnhart and Etymonline trace it through a reconstructed Vulgar Latin *pastāta (“meat wrapped in pastry”),[6][10] and the American Heritage Dictionary gives *pastātum.[11] The English ending -y represents the ending of the French word.[7][12] The OED's first record, of 1296, is part of a surname, and the surname of Adam Pastey (1269) suggests that the word was current earlier, though it may reflect the Anglo-Norman rather than the English word.[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pie of seasoned meat in a pastry crust: Havelok the Dane (c. 1300) lists pastees and flaunes among the food offered to the hero,[2] and Etymonline dates the word to about 1300.[10] Barnhart dates the form pastei to before 1300.[6]

Semantic evolution

The medieval pasty was a pie of seasoned meat, especially venison, in a crust baked without a dish; in later use the word means a small pastry case folded around a savoury or sweet filling.[4][5] In Middle English it could also be a cake or pie containing medicines, a sense the OED connects with Latin pastillus.[4][2] Chaucer uses the word once, in the Cook's Prologue of the Canterbury Tales.[13][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as a pie of crust raised without a dish, quoting Shakespeare.[14] Wright's dialect dictionary records it in Cumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Cornwall for a small pie or turnover of fruit, jam or meat baked without a dish, and quotes a description of a Cornish worker holding the lower half of his daily pasty in a bag or a piece of newspaper.[15]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – a pie of seasoned meat in a crust, baked without a dish.[2][10]
  • before 1398 – a cake or pie containing medicinal ingredients (obsolete by 1500).[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A pastry case folded around a filling of seasoned meat and vegetables, or of fruit, and baked without a dish, as a Cornish pasty.[3][16][5][17]
  2. (obsolete) A pie of seasoned meat, especially venison, in a crust baked without a dish.[4][5][14]

Word family

  • Cornish pasty

pasty2 pale, doughy

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1607 Dekker and Webster, Northward Ho
Ultimate origin
Late Latin pasta
Etymology tree of pasty2
inherited borrowed derived
English paste
English pasty
From the same root · pasty2
English pasteboard ← paste
English pastry ← paste
English toothpaste ← paste

Pronunciation

Etymology

The word for pale, doughy is formed from English paste + -y.[4][3][5][10] Paste goes back through Old French to Late Latin pasta.[11][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Resembling paste or dough in consistency, look or colour: 1607, in Dekker and Webster's Northward Ho.[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1607,[3] while Etymonline and Dictionary.com date the word to the 1650s.[10][18]

Semantic evolution

From 1836 the word described a complexion of the colour of dough, dull and unhealthily pale, and pasty-faced belongs with this sense.[4] In Scotland and several English counties it meant pale or sallow, and in Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire also swollen or flabby, as of a hand stung by a wasp.[15] The OED records it briefly for the look of paste jewellery (1844–64), and since 1925 for handwriting with thick, smudgy strokes.[4]

Timeline

  • 1607 – resembling paste or dough.[4][3]
  • 1836 – of the complexion, dull and unhealthily pale.[4]
  • 1844 – like paste jewellery (obsolete by 1864).[4]
  • 1876 – in figurative use.[4]
  • 1925 – of handwriting, having thick smudgy lines.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of the face or skin: pale and unhealthy-looking; pallid: After a winter indoors he looked thin and pasty.[19][11][3][4]
  2. Like paste in consistency, colour or texture.[19][11][3][4]
  3. Of handwriting: having thick, smudgy lines.[4]

Word family

  • pastiness
  • pastily
  • pasty-faced

Usage notes

The noun is pronounced /ˈpasti/ in Britain and /ˈpæsti/ in the United States, and the adjective /ˈpeɪsti/.[4][16] Collins also records pasty, plural pasties, for either of a pair of small round coverings for the nipples worn by striptease dancers;[19] Dictionary.com dates this sense to the early 1950s and forms it from paste with a different suffix -y from that of the adjective.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  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 Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  17. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  18. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  19. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pasty.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/pasty. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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