pasta

Forms

pasta f (plural pastas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin pasta (“dough, paste”), a word in use at every period and common to all the western Romance languages.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word was borrowed from Greek: the DLE gives Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “porridge”), derived from πάσσω (pássō, “to sprinkle, strew”), and Corominas cites the form πάστη (pástē, “flour mixed with sauce”).^[4][2][3] In Wiktionary's account the Greek noun is the neuter plural of παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt”), and the verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₁t- (“to shake”).^[1]

The same word is Italian pasta, French pâte, Occitan pasta, Catalan pasta and Portuguese pasta.^[5][6] In Asturias the form is Asturian pastia, a paste of wheat or maize flour.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to Berceo, and the BDELC gives 1220–1250.^[2][3] The earliest hit in the CDH is in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (1246–1252, known from an 18th-century copy), where devils try to win a soul: mas pora fer tal pasta menguavalis farina “but to make such a dough they lacked flour”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

In Castilian the word has always been less general and more technical than in Italian, French or Catalan, because the popular word for dough is masa.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 described it as a mass of various things crushed and mixed together, and recorded hombre de buena pasta for a plain, easy-going man.^[10] Autoridades added its use for metals and for a kind of pasteboard made of pulped paper.^[11] Terreros applied it to many sweets and pastes of fruit, and also to a person's constitution and temper.^[12] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 included the wheat dough of which noodles are made for soup.^[13]

Today the word also names Italian pasta in general, the binding of books in leather-covered boards and, colloquially in Spain, money.^[4][1] In Cuba it is unhurried calm, and in El Salvador a pill of a drug.^[4] Americanism dictionaries record pasta for phlegm or sluggishness in Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Ecuador and Uruguay, and for a small cake in Ecuador.^[14]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record, in Berceo.^[2][3]
• 1246–1252 – the Milagros de Nuestra Señora speak of the devils' dough.^[8]
• 1546 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, of a sweet, juicy paste.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records hombre de buena pasta.^[10]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary includes the dough for noodles and other soup pastas.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin pasta.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A paste: a soft mass made of one or more crushed substances: una pasta de harina y agua.^[4][1]
2. dough worked with butter or oil and other ingredients, for pies, puff pastry and pasties.^[4]
3. A small baked biscuit, sometimes covered with chocolate or jam: pastas de té.^[4][1]
4. The flour dough of which noodles, macaroni and similar foods are made; pasta, these foods as a whole.^[4][1]
5. pulp of rags, wood or other material for making paper and cardboard.^[4]
6. A book binding of boards covered with polished, usually marbled leather.^[4]
7. A person's character or natural disposition: ser de buena pasta.^[4]
8. A lump of gold, silver or other metal, melted and not yet worked.^[4]
9. (colloquial) money; wealth.^[4][1]
10. (painting) The thorough blending of colours; empaste.^[4]
11. (Cuba, colloquial) Calm of someone who does not hurry or worry even with reason to.^[4]
12. (El Salvador) A pill of a drug.^[4]

Word family

• pastel
• pastilla
• pastoso
• empastar

Related words

• masa
• Late Latin pasta
• French pâte

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 421
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pasta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. pasta
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pasta
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
9. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1198
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 157
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 59
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 646
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pasta
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. pasta
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 798