spaghetti

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian spaghetti, the plural of spaghetto (“thin string, twine”),^[2][3][4][5] a diminutive of spago (“cord, string”).^[6][3][7][8] The origin of spago is uncertain.^[3][7][4][9] The American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Late Latin spācum, itself of unknown origin,^[6] and Dictionary.com to a Late Latin word for twine, probably from a Greek word for a long-threaded lichen;^[10] Merriam-Webster compares a Sardinian word for cord or string.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pasta made in long thin strings: 1827, in an advertisement in The Scotsman.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and Ayto give Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery as the first record, which spells it sparghetti and defines it as Naples vermicelli.^[3][7] Etymonline dates it to the 4th edition (1845), Barnhart and Ayto to 1849.^[3][4][7]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the word was still unfamiliar enough in Acton's day for her to misspell it.^[7] Barnhart finds the modern spelling from 1888,^[4] and Merriam-Webster dates the main sense to 1874.^[5] The word came to mean a dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce by 1884.^[3] From 1935 it was used figuratively of any tangle of thin strands,^[2][11] and since 1963 of a complex multi-level road junction, as in spaghetti junction.^[2][3][11] As a contemptuous slang word for an Italian it is recorded from 1915 in Green's Dictionary of Slang, and in the OED from 1931.^[12][2] Compounds followed: spaghetti western, a western filmed cheaply in Europe by an Italian director, by 1969, and spaghetti strap, a thin shoulder strap, from 1972.^[3][11]

Timeline

• 1827 – pasta in long thin strings.^[2]
• 1845 – sparghetti, in Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery.^[3]
• 1888 – the spelling spaghetti in Barnhart.^[4]
• 1915 – slang, an Italian (offensive).^[12]
• 1935 – figurative, a tangle of strands.^[2]
• 1963 – a complex multi-level road junction.^[2][3]
• 1969 – spaghetti western.^[3]
• 1972 – spaghetti strap.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Pasta made in long, thin, solid strings, thicker than vermicelli; also a dish of it, usually with a sauce: We had spaghetti with clams for dinner.^{[5][13][11][2]}
2. Anything resembling a tangle of such strings, such as a mass of wires.^[2][11]
3. Insulating tubing slipped over electric wire.^[5][11]
4. (colloquial) A complex multi-level road junction.^[2][11]
5. (slang, offensive) An Italian.^[2][12][11]

Word family

• spaghettilike
• spaghetti squash
• spaghetti strap
• spaghetti western

Related words

• spaghettini

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins