maccherone
Italian
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editDisputed. Possibly from late Byzantine Greek μακαρία (makaría, “food made from barley”), from Ancient Greek μακάριος (makários, “favored by gods, blessed”), but said by some to be from Latin maccāre (“bruise, batter, crush”) and massa (“bulk, mass”). Compare Sicilian maccarruni (“a single piece of macaroni”) and English macaroni.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editmaccherone m (plural maccheroni)
- (foods) macaroni (type of pasta)
Usage notes
edit- Mainly used in the plural.
Derived terms
editDescendants
edit- → Catalan: macarró
- → English: macaroni, maccaroni; maccheroni, mac
- → French: macaroni
- → French: macaron
- → Piedmontese: macaron
- → German: Makkaroni
Further reading
edit- Pianigiani, Ottorino (1907) “maccherone”, in Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana (in Italian), Rome: Albrighi & Segati
- Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
- “maccherone”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.