patty

Etymology

It is borrowed from French pâté (“pie, pasty”), altered in English.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The OED sees the English suffix -y substituted for the French ending,^[2][7] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English see the influence of pasty.^[4][5] The French word is pâte (“paste”) with the suffix -é,^[2] and that noun comes from Old French paste (“dough, pastry”), from Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake”).^[8][9] Weekley calls the English words pasty, patty and pâté three successive borrowings of the same French word.^[10] Barnhart and Etymonline find it first in patti-pan, something baked in a small pan, from the 1690s.^[11][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small pie or pasty: 1660, in R. May's Accomplisht Cook.^[2][12] Barnhart dates the word to 1694, in patti-pan,^[11] and Etymonline to 1710.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The OED explains the modern sense, a small flat cake of chopped or minced food, especially meat, recorded from 1904 and chiefly North American, as a transfer from the pasty to its typical filling, probably helped by association with pat, a small flattened lump.^[2] From 1916 a patty was also a thin round sweet, often flavoured with peppermint.^[2][4] The original sense, a small pie, is now used chiefly in the Caribbean.^[2] The pattypan, a small tin in which patties are baked, is recorded by 1710.^[8][4]

Timeline

• 1660 – a small pie or pasty.^[2][12]
• 1694 – patti-pan, something baked in a small pan.^[11]
• 1904 – a small flat cake of chopped food, especially meat.^[2]
• 1916 – a thin round sweet, often peppermint-flavoured.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small flat cake of chopped or minced food, especially ground beef: He grilled four lamb patties.^[13][12][2]
2. A small pie or pasty; in the Caribbean, a pastry with a savoury filling.^[13][12][2]
3. A small, flat, round sweet, often flavoured with peppermint.^[12][2][4]

Word family

• pattypan
• patty shell

Related words

• pâté
• pasty
• paste
• pasta
• pastry

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins