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pizza Meaning & Definition

/ˈpiː.tsə/

What Does Pizza Mean?

Pizza is a noun that means 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. It is also used to mean A single instance of this dish.

Pizza: Key Facts

Part of speechnoun
Pronunciation/ˈpiː.tsə/
Syllables2
Synonymspizza pie and pie
Pluralpizzas

Pizza Definition (Noun)

  1. 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.

    a slice of pizza

  2. A single instance of this dish.

    He ate a whole pizza!

  3. snowplow: a maneuver in which the tips of the skis or skates point inwards and the back ends point outwards.

Noun

  1. A baked Italian dish of a thinly rolled bread dough crust typically topped before baking with tomato sauce, cheese and other ingredients such as meat, vegetables or fruit

    Want to go out for pizza tonight?

Synonyms of Pizza

Pizza synonyms and antonyms →

Pizza in a Sentence

a slice of pizza

a pizza pie

Want to go out for pizza tonight?

He ate a whole pizza!

Should we cook a frozen pizza for dinner?

Word Forms & Grammar

pizza (countable and uncountable, plural pizzas or (rare) pizze)

Words That Rhyme With Pizza

Origin of Pizza

Origin 1: First attested in 1931, borrowed from Neapolitan pizza (1590), of uncertain origin. Possibly related to Medieval Greek πίτα (píta, “cake, pie”), attested in 1107 and itself of uncertain origin. In that case it would be a doublet of pide and pita.

Origin 2: 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”).

Origin 3: 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”); Aramaic פִיתָּא (pītā, “piece of bread”), Hebrew פַּת (paṯ, “bread”).

Pronouncing Pizza

The standard pronunciation of pizza is /ˈpiː.tsə/, spoken in 2 syllables, with the main stress on the first syllable (piː).

Questions People Ask About Pizza

What part of speech is pizza?

Pizza is a noun.

What is another word for pizza?

Close synonyms of pizza are pizza pie and pie. See the full list of pizza synonyms and antonyms.

What is the plural of pizza?

The plural of pizza is pizzas.

More About Pizza On Meaning Stash

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