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pesto

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Etymology and origin of the Italian word pesto

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1306 before 1306, Iacopone More words from the 14th century
Ultimate origin
Latin pīnsō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pīnsō
Romanian pisa
Spanish pisar
Latin pī̆stō
Italian pestare
Italian pesto
English pesto
From the same root
Latin pistillum ← pīnsō
Latin pī̆stor ← pīnsō
Latin pistrīnum ← pīnsō
Italian pista ← pī̆stō

Pronunciation

Forms

pesto (feminine pesta, masculine plural pesti, feminine plural peste)[1] An old form is pisto.[2] In Liguria the word is also pëst.[3]

Etymology

As adjective and noun, it is the short past participle from Italian pestare (“to pound, crush”), beside the regular pestato.[4][5][6][7][8] Treccani allows a formation from the verb without a suffix, but prefers the participle.[9] Merlo, quoted by DELI, saw the adjective as a shortened participle and the noun, like the feminine pesta (“footprint”), as a deverbal noun.[4]

The sauce is a Genoese word: Casaccia's Genoese dictionary of 1876 describes Ligurian pesto as a sauce of basil or marjoram or parsley, garlic and cheese, pounded together in a mortar and thinned with oil, adding that it was not used in Tuscany.[4][3] Cortelazzo and Marcato derive it from the dialect verb pestà (“to pound”).[3]

The verb comes from pistāre, an intensive of Latin pīnsō (“to pound, crush”), whose past participle was pistum;[4][5][10][1] Wiktionary derives the adjective directly from the participle pistus (“crushed”).[4][5][10][1] Latin pīnsō goes back to Proto-Italic *pinsō and a nasal present of the root Proto-Indo-European *peys- (“to crush, grind”), the same as in Sanskrit पिनष्टि (pináṣṭi, “crushes, grinds”).[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the adjective in Iacopone, before 1306, for something bruised and battered.[4] Before 1342 Cavalca has the noun for a mash of things pounded together, and he uses the adjective of herbs pounded and mixed into a thin porridge (erbette cotte e peste).[4][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century pesto named a pounded broth of chicken;[11][12] Mattioli writes that sick people had buoni pesti di cappone made for them, a capon mash that restored their strength.[11][12] In Forteguerri's Ricciardetto (18th century) it is a beating, and in the 19th century the raw pulp of the papermakers.[11][12]

The Genoese basil sauce entered Italian dictionaries in 1918, in Panzini's.[4] It has now spread into Italian, best known in trenette al pesto.[3][9] English borrowed the word for the sauce;[13][14] Etymonline dates it from 1929 and DIFIT, after the OED, from 1848.[13][14] It has also passed into Turkish.[1]

The adjective has kept the senses of crushing and bruising: occhi pesti are eyes darkened by a blow or by tiredness, and buio pesto is total darkness.[9][15]

Timeline

  • Before 1306 – Iacopone uses the adjective pesto “bruised, battered”.[4]
  • Before 1342 – Cavalca uses the noun for a mash of pounded things.[4]
  • 16th century – The noun is used for a pounded chicken broth, by Mauro and Mattioli.[11]
  • 1848 – English pesto is first recorded, according to the OED.[14]
  • 1876 – Casaccia's Genoese dictionary describes the basil sauce.[3]
  • 1918 – Panzini's dictionary records pesto, the Genoese sauce.[4][14]
  • 1929 – Etymonline's date for the sauce in English.[13]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. crushed, ground with a pestle or another tool: aglio pesto.[6][7][16]
  2. bruised, battered by blows; aching all over from tiredness or illness: avere le ossa peste;[17][6][9] occhi pesti, eyes with dark rings.[17][6][9]
  3. (literary) Of an object, dented.[6]
  4. Dark, deep, in buio pesto, pitch darkness.[17][6][15]

Noun

  1. (cooking) A mixture of ingredients pounded together; a battuto.[17][6][7]
  2. (cooking) Minced meat mixed with seasonings, used to fill pasta.[17][6][9]
  3. (cooking) pesto, the Genoese sauce of basil, garlic, pine nuts and grated pecorino or parmesan, pounded in a mortar and thinned with olive oil: trenette al pesto.[17][6][9][8]
  4. In papermaking, the raw pulp made by soaking and pounding rags in water.[17][7][9]
  5. (obsolete) A beating.[17][12]

Usage notes

Pesto is pronounced with a closed e, /ˈpes.to/.[1][7] It is also the first person singular present of pestare (io pésto).[1] Regionally, i pesti agli occhi are bruises around the eyes.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 192
  3. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 380
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  8. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
  10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2877
  12. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  13. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  14. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
Cite this entry

“Pesto.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/it/pesto. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·