spaghetti

Pluralspaghettis

Formsspaghettis, spaghettiing, spaghettied

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Long, thin pasta shaped like strings, usually boiled and eaten with sauce.

   Like long, thin strings you can eat.

   We cooked a big pot of spaghetti for dinner.

   He twirled the spaghetti around his fork.

   Note
2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A meal made mostly of cooked spaghetti, often with sauce on top.

   We ordered spaghetti with meatballs at the restaurant.

   Mom made spaghetti for the whole family on Sunday.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialuncountablebefore a noun

   A tangled mass of long, thin things that look like cooked pasta.

   Like a pile of cooked noodles all twisted together.

   His earphone wires turned into spaghetti at the bottom of his bag.

   The yarn in the basket was all spaghetti after the cat played with it.

   Similartangle, jumble, snarl, mess, web

   Note
4. 4
   nouncolloquialuncountablebefore a noun

   A group of roads that cross and loop over each other in a confusing way.

   Like a plate of noodles, but the noodles are roads crossing over each other.

   We got lost in the spaghetti of roads outside the city.

   The new ramp added another layer to the spaghetti near the airport.

   Similarinterchange, junction

   Note
5. 5
   nouncolloquialuncountablebefore a noun

   Thin insulating tubes or wires used in electrical work.

   Like a thin straw you slide over a wire to cover it.

   The technician slid a piece of spaghetti over the bare wire.

   We ran out of spaghetti before finishing the circuit board.

   Similarsleeving, tubing

   Note
6. 6
   nouncolloquialfigurativelyuncountable

   A confusing, complicated mess that is hard to understand.

   Like a knot so tangled you can't find where the string starts.

   The new tax rules are a complete spaghetti.

   His explanation turned into spaghetti that no one could follow.

   Similarmaze, tangle, labyrinth, web, morass

   Note
7. 7
   nounderogatorycolloquialfigurativelyuncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Short for spaghetti code. Use it to talk about messy, hard-to-follow computer code.

   The old app was pure spaghetti that nobody wanted to fix.

   We rewrote the spaghetti into clean, simple functions.

   Note
8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Short for spaghetti western. Use it for a cowboy movie made by Italian filmmakers in Europe.

   Note
9. 9
   nounderogatorycolloquialcountable or uncountable

   An insulting word for a person from Italy.

   The landlord refused to rent to him, calling him a spaghetti to his face.

   The drunk customer called the waiter a spaghetti and stormed out.

   Note
10. 10
    verbcolloquialtransitive

    To tangle something up into a messy knot.

    Like mixing lots of strings until they knot together.

    Don't spaghetti the cords when you put them in the box.

    He spaghettied the rope by pulling at both ends.

    Similartangle, knot, snarl, entangle

    Oppositeuntangle, disentangle, unknot

    Note

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