pasta
Pluralpastas (some meanings)
- 1Food made from a dough of wheat flour and water, sometimes with egg, formed into shapes such as spaghetti or fusilli, usually dried, then boiled; also, a particular shape of it.
Fresh pasta made with egg cooks far faster than the dried kind.
The shop sells pasta in dozens of shapes, from tubes to ribbons.
UsageUsually with no a: cook pasta, buy some pasta. Pastas can mean different kinds or shapes.
- 2A cooked dish or serving built around boiled noodles, typically dressed with sauce and served hot.
She made a creamy pasta for the dinner party.
After the long hike, everyone wanted a warm bowl of pasta.
UsageOne serving is a bowl of pasta or a plate of pasta, and the sauce follows with: pasta with pesto.
- 3Any type of noodle, including kinds made outside the Italian tradition.
The store stocks pasta from many cuisines, including glass noodles and soba.
Rice-based pasta has become common on supermarket shelves.
Similarnoodles
Less common meaning
- 4A paste-like material used by dentists to fill a cavity in a tooth.
Practice
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Origin
Italian pasta ("paste, pasta, noodles") is the direct source. It came from pasta in Late Latin, where it meant "dough, pastry cake, paste," and that goes back to Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, "barley porridge"), the neuter plural form of παστός (pastós, "sprinkled with salt"). That Greek word possibly comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to shake." Paste is a doublet.