Mozzarella

How to spell mozzarella

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce mozzarella

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mozzarella mean?

1. nounA soft, mild white Italian cheese, traditionally made from buffalo or cow's milk and often used on pizza or in salads.

Mozzarella in a sentence

• She layered slices of tomato and fresh mozzarella for the salad.

• The recipe calls for a generous handful of grated mozzarella on top.

Where does mozzarella come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word comes straight from Italian, where mozzarella is a diminutive form built on the verb mozzare, meaning 'to cut or chop off'. The name describes how the soft cheese is traditionally made: the worker pinches and lops off small balls from a larger mass of stretched curd, the same motion that gives us the word. The root mozzare itself goes back to a Latin source meaning 'to cut short or blunt', also seen in the Italian word mozzo for something docked or cut off. English borrowed the cheese and its name during the twentieth century as Italian cooking spread, especially after pizza became popular abroad. The spelling trap is purely Italian: the doubled z reflects the sharp 'ts' sound of Italian, and the single z plus the doubled l catch many writers who guess at which letters double.

How the word is built

• mozza- (from Italian mozzare: to cut or chop off)
• -ella (diminutive suffix: little)