From Italian pasta 'dough,' from Late Latin — English only adopted the word in the 1870s, previously using 'macaroni' generically.
An Italian food made from dough of wheat flour, water, and sometimes eggs, formed into various shapes and cooked by boiling.
From Italian pasta 'paste, dough,' from Late Latin pasta 'dough, pastry,' from Greek pastá 'barley porridge,' from passein 'to sprinkle.' The word entered English surprisingly late — Italians had been eating pasta for centuries, but English speakers adopted the Italian word only in the 19th century, previously using 'macaroni' as a catch-all term. Key roots: passein (Greek: "to sprinkle").