pasta

noun

1. any of various flour-and-egg food preparations of Italian origin, made of thin, unleavened dough and produced in a variety of forms, usually served with a sauce and sometimes stuffed.

noun

1. any of several variously shaped edible preparations made from a flour and water dough, such as spaghetti

n.1874, from Italian pasta, from Late Latin pasta “dough, pastry cake, paste,” from Greek pasta “barley porridge,” probably originally “a salted mess of food,” from neuter plural of pastos (adj.) “sprinkled, salted,” from passein “to sprinkle,” from PIE root *kwet- “to shake” (see quash).