Etymologically
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pasta

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈpas.ta][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈpas.ta][1]

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

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