pizza
/ˈpi.tsə/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.43 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A baked Italian dish of a thinly rolled bread crust typically topped before baking with tomato sauce, cheese, and other ingredients such as meat or vegetables.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
Etymology
Etymology tree Byzantine Greek πίτα (píta)bor. Neapolitan pizzabor. English pizza First attested in 1931, borrowed from Neapolitan pizza (1590), the dialectal form of Byzantine Greek πίτα (píta, “cake, pie”). The Greek word is first attested in 1107 and is itself of uncertain origin. The northern Italian dialectal form was pinza, the southern (Apulian and Calabrian) form was pitta. This suggests a derivation from Latin pīnctus (pictus (“painted, smeared”)) or pīnsum, pīnsitum, pistum (“pounded”), but the northern forms appear to be contaminated with pinzare (“to staple”). There are alternative suggestions involving Greek etymologies (πηκτή (pēktḗ), πηκτός (pēktós, “compacted, congealed”); πήτεα (pḗtea, “bran”); Ancient Greek πιττάκιον (pittákion, “patch; tablet; ticket”)), more remote possibilities involve comparison with Lombardic pizzo, pizza (“bite, morsel, lump, dumpling”); Albanian petë (“layer”), Romanian pată (“blotch, stain, macula”); Albanian pite (“gruel”); From Aramaic פִיתָּא (pītā, “piece of bread”), Hebrew פַּת (paṯ, “bread”). Doublet of pide and pita.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: πίτα, pīnctus, פִיתָּא
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpi.tsə/
- British English: /ˈpiː.tsə/