macaroni

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English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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A pile of elbow macaroni

Alternative forms

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Etymology 1

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From Italian maccaroni, plural of maccarone, obsolete variant of maccheroni (“macaroni, fool”), of uncertain origin. Variously derived from late Byzantine Greek μακαρία (makaría, “food made from barley”), from Ancient Greek μακάριος (makários, “blessed, favored by the gods”), and from maccare (“to bruise, to crush”), archaic variant of ammaccare, from Latin maccāre (“to bruise, to crush”). Compare Sicilian maccarruni (“a single piece of macaroni”). As a fop, apparently from the British Macaroni Club rather than from Italian use of maccarone for fools and bumpkins. As a former form of currency, used to calque Spanish macuquino, 18th-century colonial Spanish slang for a similarly clipped coin.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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macaroni (countable and uncountable, plural macaronis or macaronies)

  1. (uncountable) A type of pasta in the form of short tubes, typically boiled and served in soup, with a sauce, or in melted cheese; a dish of this. [from 18th c.]
    Hyponyms: elbow macaroni, pipe macaroni
    • 1778, Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery..., new ed., p. 124:
      Take half a pound of small pipe-macaroni.
    • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 32:
      "I can recommend this macaroni, for it is my favourite dish: I am very national. You will not take any? Ah, young ladies are, or ought to be, light eaters. Your ladyship will, I trust, set your fair companion an example."
  2. (uncountable, obsolete or informal, loosely) Pasta, particularly thicker noodles, spaghetti. [from 17th c.]
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pasta
    • 1673, John Ray, Observations..., page 405:
      Paste made into strings like pack-thread or thongs of whit-leather (which if greater they call Macaroni, if lesser Vermicelli) they cut in pieces and put in their pots as we do oat-meal to make their menestra or broth of.
    • 1883, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XV, s.v.:
      MACARONI... is a preparation of wheat originally peculiar to Italy, in which country it is an article of food of national importance. The same substance in different forms is also known as vermicelli, pasta or Italian pastes, taglioni, fanti, &c.
  3. (uncountable, obsolete) Synonym of gnocchi (“Italian dumpling made of potato or semolina”). [17th c.]
  4. (countable, chiefly historical and derogatory) A dandy or fop, particularly in the 18th century a young Englishman who had travelled in Europe and subsequently dressed and spoke in an ostentatiously affected Continental manner. [from 17th c.]
    • 1764 February 6, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Hertford:
      ... the Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses) ...
    • 1764 May 27, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Hertford:
      Lady Falkener's daughter is to be married to a young rich Mr. Crewe, a Macarone...
    • 1770 June, Oxford Magazine, page 228:
      There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.
    • 1773, Robert Hitchcock, The Macaroni, Act I:
      I wanted you to be a man of spirit; your ambition was to appear a first-rate Macaroni; you are returned fully qualified, and determined, I see, to shew the world what a contemptible creature an English-man dwindles into, when he adopts the follies and vices of other nations.
    • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.ii:
      'Sure never were seen two such beautiful Ponies;
      Other Horses are Clowns—and these macaronies
    • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XI, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:
      Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that were so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.
    • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:
      A small, noisy party of Fops, Macaronis, or Lunarians,—it is difficult quite to distinguish which,—has been working its way up the street.
  5. (countable, Caribbean, now historical, numismatics) A 19th-century quarter-silver dollar coin, typically a full 2-real coin or a quarter clipping of an 8-real coin from Central or South America. [from 19th c.]
    • 1808, John Stewart, An Account of Jamaica..., page 59:
      The silver coins are dollars (6s. 8d.), half dollars, and quarter dollars, or maccaronies as they are here popularly called.
  6. (countable, zoology) Ellipsis of macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus). [from 19th c.]
    • 1955 May 16, The Times, page 5:
      15 penguins were hatched and reared in the Edinburgh Zoo—seven kings, four gentoos, three maccaronis, and one ringed.
  7. (countable, ethnic slur) Synonym of Italian (“a person from Italy or of Italian ethnicity”). [from 19th c.]
    • 1845 December 15, Frances Anne Kemble, letter:
      Surely I shall always be able, go where I will, among frogs or maccaronis, to procure sucre noir, or inchiostro nero.
  8. (countable, obsolete) Ellipsis of macaroni tool. [from 19th c.]
    • 1867, George Alfred Rogers, The Art of Wood Carving, page 12:
      Now take the maccaroni and cut away the wood on either side of the vein...
  9. (countable, Scotland, zoology, obsolete) Synonym of lizard canary. [from 19th c.]
    • 1876, Robert Linlithgow Wallace, The Canary Book, page 165:
      Lizards are known among Scotchmen as ‘macaronies’.
  10. (uncountable, literature, obsolete) A mix of languages in macaronic verse. [from 19th c.]
    • 1884, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, volume I, page 166:
      ... political songs in Latin or in a maccaroni of Latin and English ...
  11. (uncountable, Australia, slang) Nonsense; meaningless talk.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense
    • 1924, D. H. Lawrence et al., The Boy in the Bush, page 46:
      Yes. Jam, macaroni, cockadoodle. We're plain people out hereaways, not mantle ornaments.
Derived terms
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Descendants
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  • → Japanese: マカロニ (makaroni)
  • → Korean: 마카로니 (makaroni)
  • → Malay:
  • → Scottish Gaelic: macaroni
Translations
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Adjective

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macaroni (comparative more macaroni, superlative most macaroni)

  1. (historical) Chic, fashionable, stylish; in the manner of a macaroni.

See also

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Etymology 2

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From French macaron. Doublet of macaron.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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macaroni (plural macaronis)

  1. (obsolete) A macaroon.
    • 1777, Charlotte Mason, The lady's assistant for regulating and supplying her table: being a complete system of cookery, containing one hundred and fifty select bills of fare, properly disposed for family dinners ... with upwards of fifty bills of fare for suppers ... and several desserts: including likewise, the fullest and choicest receipts of various kinds ...‎[1] (cooking), page 300:
      Macaroni. It comes from Italy. It is a biscuit made of almonds, eggs, flower, and sugar.

Anagrams

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References

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Dutch

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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macaroni m (uncountable)

  1. macaroni

Descendants

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French

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Italian maccaroni, obsolete variant of maccheroni (“macaroni”), plural of maccherone, of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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des macaronis

macaroni m (plural macaronis)

  1. (usually in the plural) macaroni

Derived terms

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Descendants

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Scottish Gaelic

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Etymology

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From English macaroni, from Italian maccheroni.

Noun

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macaroni m

  1. macaroni

Mutation

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Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical Lenition
macaroni mhacaroni
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Spanish

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Noun

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macaroni m (plural macaronis)

  1. macaroni

Derived terms

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