Macaroni

How to spell macaroni

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce macaroni

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does macaroni mean?

1. nounA type of pasta shaped into short, narrow tubes, often served baked with cheese.

Macaroni in a sentence

• She stirred grated cheese into the warm macaroni for the children.

• The recipe calls for a full bag of dried macaroni and two cups of milk.

Where does macaroni come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word came into English in the late 1500s from the Italian maccheroni, the plural of maccherone, a name for the long tubes of wheat-paste pasta. The Italian term is thought to trace back through dialect to the late Greek makaria, which described a dish of barley or broth, and behind that may lie makar, meaning 'blessed' or 'happy', perhaps a nod to comforting food. English flattened the Italian double c and h, so the modern spelling keeps a single c and drops the h, which is exactly where writers familiar with the Italian form can go wrong. In the eighteenth century the word took a surprising turn: young Englishmen who had toured Italy and adopted flashy continental fashions were mocked as 'macaronis', which is why the song 'Yankee Doodle' has him stick a feather in his cap and call it macaroni. The food sense, however, is by far the one in everyday use today.

How the word is built

• macaron- (from Italian maccherone, a pasta)
• -i (Italian plural ending)