pasta

Forms

pasta f (genitive pastae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πάστη (pástē, “dough”),^[2][3][4] which Köbler gives with a question mark.^[4] Wiktionary gives the Greek source as παστά (pastá), from παστός (pastós, “sprinkled”), from πάσσω (pássō, “to sprinkle”).^[1]

It is the source of Italian pasta, of the same word in Sardinian, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese, and of French pâte,^[2][5] and through Old French of English paste.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first author is the physician Marcellus, who prescribes the scrapings of pasta that stick to the kneading trough and bakes a remedy wrapped in it.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

In Late Latin it is flour kneaded with water, dough, a paste,^[2][8][5] and Georges explains it as a dish of mixed, crumbled food.^[3] Medieval writers use it for a pasty and for dough or paste,^[9][4] and British sources also for a paste used as a material for jewellery, and figuratively.^[10] Wiktionary records the New Latin sense “pasta”.^[1]

Timeline

• Late Antiquity – Marcellus, De medicamentis: dough in remedies.^[2][7]
• c. 1300 – English paste “dough”, through Old French.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin) dough, flour kneaded with water; paste.^[2][8][5]
2. (Late Latin) A dish of mixed and crumbled food.^[3]
3. (Medieval Latin) A pasty.^[9]
4. (Medieval Latin) A paste used as material, as for jewellery.^[10]
5. (New Latin) pasta.^[1]

Word family

• *pastīcius

Related words

• English paste

Usage notes

A different word pāsta, from pāscō “to feed”, means a crammed hen; it is found in Pliny Valerianus.^[3][8][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press