pie

Pronunciation

• IPA: /paɪ/^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3] It appears in Medieval Latin pie, meat or fish in pastry, about 1303, perhaps related to Medieval Latin pia, pastry.^[2][3] It is probably the same word as Middle English pie, magpie, borrowed from Old French pie, from Latin pīca (“magpie”),^[4][5][6] perhaps because a pie's miscellaneous contents were compared with the odd objects a magpie collects.^[4][7][3] The OED notes that the word is not known outside English except in Gaelic pighe, from English.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Food enclosed in pastry: 1303 in a Medieval Latin context, 1357–58 in English in Barnhart;^[2] piehus, bakery, is from 1199.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages a pie had many ingredients and a pastry crust.^[3] Fruit pies appear about 1600; the first apple pie on record is from 1590.^[2][3] Something easy is from 1889, after easy as eating pie (1884).^[3] Pie in the sky is from 1911, from Joe Hill's Wobbly parody of hymns,^[3] the pie chart from 1922,^[3] and pie-eyed, drunk, from 1904.^[3] A share of something, a slice of the pie, is by 1967.^[3]

Timeline

• 1199 – piehus, a bakery.^[2]
• 1303 – pie in Medieval Latin.^[2]
• 1357 – in English.^[2]
• 1590 – apple pie.^[2]
• 1889 – something easy.^[3]
• 1911 – pie in the sky.^[3]
• 1922 – pie chart.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A baked dish of fruit, meat or vegetables with a top and often a base of pastry.
2. A whole to be shared out: a bigger slice of the pie.
3. (informal) Something very easy.

Word family

• pielike
• pie-eyed
• pie-faced
• piehole
• apple-pie

Related words

• magpie
• pica
• piebald
• pied

Usage notes

Pie, the magpie, is recorded from the mid-13th century and survives in magpie.^[2][3] In printing, pie (also pi) is a jumbled mass of type, from the 1650s.^[3][4] The pie that was a small Indian coin, a quarter of an anna, is from Hindi pāī.^[6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press