In a Word: More Pasta Than You Could Eat

Senior managing editor and logophile Andy Hollandbeck reveals the sometimes surprising roots of common English words and phrases. Remember: Etymology tells us where a word comes from, but not what it means today.

Whenever I’m in the world foods aisle at the grocery store, I’m amazed by the wide variety of pasta shapes available. Each shape comes with its own name, and in some cases the differences seem so subtle as to be invisible to me. But the language of Italian pasta (not to mention the flavor) has long been of interest to me, and I thought explaining where all these different names come from would be a good subject for this column.

And then I started researching. To say that there are a lot of pastas out there would be understatement. There are between 350 and 400 different types to choose from.

To stick with a culinary theme, I bit off more than I could chew.

So what you’ll find below is a look at the names of some of America’s more popular Italian pastas. If your favorite is bigoli, calamarata, fazzoletti, ferrazzuoli, lorighittas, mezzelune, hand-rolled pici, quadrefiore, or sorprese, it didn’t make the list, along with literally hundreds of others.

The word pasta itself goes way back to ancient Greek, where pasta meant “barley porridge.” In Late Latin, it had come to mean “dough or paste.” Though Italians have been eating pasta for ages, the word didn’t become so popular in English until after World War II.

All of these pasta names come to English through Italian. You’ll notice that a majority of them end in -i, which is a plural ending in Italian (like Latin before it). In the singular version, the i can become an –a (as in conchiglia), an e (cannellone), or an o (spaghetto), depending on a number of linguistic factors that are better left for a native Italian speaker to explain. You’ll also notice some other repetition at the ends of the words, especially -ini, -itti, and –elli or some near variation. These are diminutive suffixes, meaning that they indicate “small” versions of whatever the base word is.

So, here goes, our carb-based etymological feast:

Long Pastas

Bucatini

Bucatini looks like spaghetti, but it has one big difference: It’s hollow. Like a straw, a hole runs the entire length of a bucatino — and that’s where its name comes from; buco is Italian for “hole.” That hole lets the pasta soak up a lot of sauce.

In some parts of Italy, bucatini is known as perciatelli, from perciato “pierced.”

Fettuccine

Long, flat, and around a quarter-inch wide, fettuccine (fettuccina in the singular) is a ribbon-like pasta, which is where it gets its name. Fetta is Italian for “ribbon,” so fettuccine is “little ribbons.” It’s quite similar to tagliatelle, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Linguine

Falling in width between spaghetti and fettuccine, linguine in cross-section is neither flat nor round but elliptical — thicker in the center. Someone thought they resembled the shape of a small tongue (though long, to be sure), and so that’s what they called it. Lingua is Italian for “tongue,” and linguine is “little tongues.”

Spaghetti

The most common type of long pasta in the States, spaghetti gets its name from the Italian spago “string, twine.” A spaghetto, then, is a “little string.”

Tagliatelle

Tagliatelle are long, flat, and thin, similar to fettucine. The name tagliatelle comes from tagliare, a verb meaning “to cut,” because it is traditionally made by rolling dough flat and then cutting it into long ribbons with a kitchen knife.

Etymologically related are “badly cut” maltagliati, a type of irregularly shaped flat pasta formed from the scraps left during pasta production.

According to The Spruce Eats, the main difference between tagliatelle and fettuccine is that tagliatelle is made with eggs, and fettuccine is not. Tagliatelle is usually a bit wider as well.

Vermicelli

Thinner than spaghetti, vermicelli gets its name from the Italian verme “worm,” from the Latin vermis. Vermicelli is “little worms.”

Short Pastas

Cavatappi

This hollow, helical pasta resembles the spiral of a corkscrew, to Americans as well as Italians: Cavatappi is Italian for “corkscrew,” from cava “to extract” and tappi “stopper or cork.”

Conchiglie

If you notice the conch at the beginning of the word, you’re more than halfway there. Conchiglie is Italian for “seashells,” which perfectly describes the shape of these little morsels.

Farfalle

To some Americans, this pasta resembles little bowties and so call it “bowtie pasta.” But to Italians of the 16th century (before bowties were invented), they looked like butterflies. Farfalle is simply the Italian word for “butterflies.”

Fusilli

Fusilli is a bit different because its name comes not from what it looks like but how it’s made — or, at least, how it was traditionally made. Mass-produced fusilli only bears a passing resemblance to its original form.

Traditionally, fusilli is made by rolling a short length of pasta dough into a spaghetti-like strand, flattening it, and then rolling it around a skewer or spindle — a fuso in Italian — at an angle. The resulting “little spindles” take on a spiral shape.

Macaroni

When people say macaroni in the States, they normally mean elbow macaroni, the short, smooth, curved tubes at the heart of mac and cheese — or else they’re using the word to refer to Italian pasta more generally. In Italy, this maccheroni  goes by several names (with some subtle differences in shape), including gomiti “elbows,” pipette “little pipes,” and lumachine “little snails,” and can be smooth (lisce) or ridged (rigate).

Macaroni has been a part of English vocabulary for several centuries, and maccheroni in Italy for several more. Tracing its history has proven difficult. It might come from the verb maccare “bruise, crush, batter,” or it might be related to the Greek makaroneia “funeral hymn,” which is presumed to have later meant “food served at a funeral.” Who knew mac and cheese could be so dark?

Mostaccioli

The name of this smooth tube pasta with ends cut at an angle has a long history in the wine-making regions of southern Europe. And by long history, I mean tracing to before the birth of Julius Caesar. The story is both etymologically and culinarily interesting and, I think, worthy of its own post.

Come back on September 12 to get a fuller story, but here’s the short version: At the heart of mostaccioli is grape must, a syrup made from reduced grape juice, pulp, skins, stems, and seeds that was set aside during the wine-making process. This was used as a sweetener in the original type of mostaccioli, which was a cookie or biscuit. Mostaccioli pasta takes its name from its resemblance to the shape of the mostaccioli biscuit.

Orecchiette

Eating orecchiette can become uncomfortable if you think about its name too deeply. These are little round, concave pieces of pasta. One could say they’re shaped like little cups, or beanies, or domes, or bowls … but that wasn’t evocative enough for the Italians. Orecchio is Italian for “ears”; orecchiette are “little ears.”

Penne

Much like mostaccioli, penne is a tubular pasta with its ends cut at angles, and it’s those angles that give rise to the name. Penne is the plural of the Italian penna “pen, quill” — the angle of the cut is reminiscent of the tip of a quill pen.

The only difference between penne and mostaccioli is that the outside of penne is ridged, which is why it is also called penne rigate: rigate is Italian for “striped, ridged, or fluted.” In some parts of Italy, mostaccioli is better known as penne lisce; lisce means “smooth.”

Radiatori

This pasta shape’s name is exactly what you think it is: radiatori is Italian for “radiators.” According to lore, it was created in the 1960s to imitate the shape of a radiator on a Bugatti automobile.

Rigatoni

Rigatoni is a straight-cut tubular pasta that has a ribbed exterior, so it can hold a lot of yummy sauce. I mentioned earlier that the rigate in penne rigate means “striped, ridged, or fluted.” Rigatoni comes from the same place, from riga “line” — surprisingly, a word of Germanic origin, not Latin. The suffix -oni is not diminutive but augmentative (indicating “large”), so rigatoni is literally “large ridges” — not so large you could stick your thumb into one, but larger than penne or mostaccioli.

Rotelle and Rotini

Ruota is Italian for “wheel,” related to the Latin verb rotare “to rotate, roll, spin.” Using different diminutive suffixes, rotelle and rotini both mean “little wheels.” And here we find some disagreement on our supermarket shelves. In every case, rotini is a pasta dough that has been forced through a die that causes it to take a corkscrew shape, similar to mass-produced fusilli. Some brands call this shape rotelle instead, but other brands sell a rotelle that is literally shaped like small wheels.

So if you ever find yourself trying to figure out the difference between two seemingly identical pastas with different names, remember: It’s not just you.

Ziti

This smooth tubular pasta — longer but thinner than rigatoni — is usually sold in American stores in two-inch-long, flat-cut pieces, but traditionally it is made and sold in longer lengths that are broken or cut during preparation.

Ziti is the plural of zito, an alteration of zita “bride.” The etymology folks at Merriam-Webster tell us that it is probably a shortening of maccheroni di zita, literally “the bride’s macaroni,” and it’s often served as the first course at Italian weddings.

Other Pastas

Cannelloni

Smooth-sided cannelloni is similar to ziti and rigatoni but large enough that it can be stuffed with rich meats and cheeses and then cooked. The word cannelloni traces back to the Greek kanna, which became the Latin canna “reed or tube.” (That means it’s related to both cannon and canon, as well as cannoli.) As I mentioned with rigatoni, the –oni ending is augmentative, so cannelloni reduces to “large cane stalk” or “large tube.”

Gnocchi

Unlike the primarily flour-based pastas on this list, the main ingredient in gnocchi — a type of Italian dumpling — is potato. There are two theories about where the name of these little mounds of dough (a gnoccho in the singular) comes from, and both refer to its shape. One theory is that it comes from nocco “knuckle.” The other is that it’s related to nocchio “a knot or eye in wood.” And it’s even possible that, farther back in time, nocco and nocchio stemmed from the same root word.

Does nocchio put you in mind of an old Italian story? The name Pinocchio has been variously described to mean “pine nut,” “pine eye,” or “pine seed.”

Lasagna

This wide, flat pasta, often with a ruffled edge, gives its name to the layered dish it is used in as well. There is some murkiness in the etymology of lasagna, but the leading theory is that the Romans adopted the Greek word lasanon “chamber pot” as lasanum, which, by the Middle Ages, had thankfully shifted to mean “cooking pot.”

Manicotti

Similar to cannelloni, but larger, thicker-walled, and ribbed on the outside, manicotti traces to the Latin manus “hand.” From manus comes Latin manicae “sleeves, gloves, handcuffs (i.e., manacles),” which became the Italian manica “sleeve” and manicotto “muff” — and also the singular form of the pasta. Though manicotti aren’t large enough to fit your hands in, they can hold a lot of delicious meat, cheese, and sauce.

Orzo

Orzo are small grains of pasta. While modern eaters might first think of them as “rice-shaped,” the first orzo makers compared them to a grain they were more familiar with: orzo is Italian for “barley.”

Ravioli

In Italian, a rava is a turnip. The -oli suffix is another diminutive, so small, savory, filled ravioli are literally “little turnips.”

Tortellini

Tortellini is fun because it contains two diminutives — which you’ve seen before in rotelle and rotini. First came the Latin torta “round loaf of bread,” which became the Italian torta “cake.” A filled, normally round pasta was then called a tortello (an etymological cousin of tortilla) with the addition of a diminutive ending. The smaller version of a tortello, which is folded into a ring, then grew another diminutive and was called a tortellino, or tortellini in the plural.