macaroni
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /mɑk.əˈɹəʊ.ni/
enpr: măk'ə-rōʹnē
ipa: /ˌmækəˈɹoʊni/
rhymes: -əʊni
Forms: form: macaronis
form: macaronies
form: maccaroni
form: maccheroni
form: mac
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: Take half a pound of small pipe-macaroni.
ref: 1778, Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery..., new ed., p. 124
text: "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."
ref: 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 32:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1673, John Ray, Observations..., page 405:
text: 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.
ref: 1883, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XV, s.v.
synonyms: word: macaroni
word: noodle
word: pasta
word: paste
glosses: Pasta, particularly thicker noodles, spaghetti.
examples: text: Maccaróni, a kind of meat made of round peeces of paste, boyled in water and put into a dish with butter, spice and grated-cheese vpon them.
ref: 1611, John Florio, Queen Anna's New World of Words, s.v:
text: He doth learne to make ſtrange ſauces, to eat ænchouies, maccaroni, bouoli, fagioli, and cauiare, becauſe hee loues ’hem; […]
ref: 1600 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Cynthias Reuels, or The Fountayne of Selfe-Loue. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act II, scene iii, page 203:
glosses: Synonym of gnocchi (“Italian dumpling made of potato or semolina”).
synonyms: word: gnocchi
extra: Italian dumpling made of potato or semolina
examples: text: ... the Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses) ...
ref: 1764 February 6, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Hertford
text: Lady Falkener's daughter is to be married to a young rich Mr. Crewe, a Macarone...
ref: 1764 May 27, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Hertford
text: 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.
ref: 1770 June, Oxford Magazine, page 228:
text: 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.
ref: 1773, Robert Hitchcock, The Macaroni, Act I
text: 'Sure never were seen two such beautiful Ponies;
Other Horses are Clowns—and these macaronies
ref: 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.ii:
text: 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.
ref: 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XI, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:
text: A small, noisy party of Fops, Macaronis, or Lunarians,—it is difficult quite to distinguish which,—has been working its way up the street.
ref: 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:
synonyms: word: cockscomb
word: popinjay
word: poseur
word: barbermonger
word: beau
word: blade
word: blood
word: buck
word: carpet knight
word: cockscomb
word: dandy
word: dike
word: dood
word: dude
word: dudelet
word: exquisite
word: fashionable
word: fast man
word: fine gentleman
word: fop
word: foretop
word: fribble
word: gallant
word: go
word: jack-a-dandy
word: Jemmy-Jessamy
word: jetter
word: macaroni
word: masher
word: metrosexual
word: mignon
word: petit maître
word: popinjay
word: pretty boy
word: prig
word: puss-gentleman
word: smart
word: spark
word: spiff
word: swell
word: tippy
word: toff
glosses: 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.
examples: text: The silver coins are dollars (6s. 8d.), half dollars, and quarter dollars, or maccaronies as they are here popularly called.
ref: 1808, John Stewart, An Account of Jamaica..., page 59:
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
numismatics
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 15 penguins were hatched and reared in the Edinburgh Zoo—seven kings, four gentoos, three maccaronis, and one ringed.
ref: 1955 May 16, The Times, page 5:
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
glosses: Ellipsis of macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus).
examples: text: Surely I shall always be able, go where I will, among frogs or maccaronis, to procure sucre noir, or inchiostro nero.
ref: 1845 December 15, Frances Anne Kemble, letter
glosses: Synonym of Italian (“a person from Italy or of Italian ethnicity”).
synonyms: word: Italian
extra: a person from Italy or of Italian ethnicity
examples: text: Now take the maccaroni and cut away the wood on either side of the vein...
ref: 1867, George Alfred Rogers, The Art of Wood Carving, page 12:
glosses: Ellipsis of macaroni tool.
examples: text: Lizards are known among Scotchmen as ‘macaronies’.
ref: 1876, Robert Linlithgow Wallace, The Canary Book, page 165:
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
glosses: Synonym of lizard canary.
synonyms: word: lizard canary
examples: text: ... political songs in Latin or in a maccaroni of Latin and English ...
ref: 1884, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, volume I, page 166:
topics: literature
media
publishing
glosses: A mix of languages in macaronic verse.
examples: text: Yes. Jam, macaroni, cockadoodle. We're plain people out hereaways, not mantle ornaments.
ref: 1924, D. H. Lawrence et al., The Boy in the Bush, page 46:
synonyms: word: absurdity
word: all my eye
word: all my eye and Betty Martin
word: applesauce
word: bafflegab
word: balderdash
word: balls
word: baloney
word: banana oil
word: Bandini
word: baragouin
word: batcrap
word: batshit
word: bilgewater
word: blah
word: blather
word: blatherskite
word: bobbins
word: bollocks
word: bosh
word: BS
word: bull
word: bullcrap
word: bulldust
word: bull feathers
word: bullshit
word: bullspeak
word: bunk
word: bunkum
word: bushwah
word: clamjamfrey
word: claptrap
word: cobblers
word: codswallop
word: crap
word: crock
word: crock of shit
word: double Dutch
word: double talk
word: doublespeak
word: dribble
word: drivel
word: eyewash
word: fiddle-faddle
word: flapdoodle
word: flim-flam
word: flizz
word: flummery
word: folderol
word: foolishness
word: footle
word: framis
word: fuckery
word: fuckry
word: fudge
word: galimatias
word: garbage
word: garble
word: gibber
word: gibberish
word: gobbledygook
word: gossip
word: Greek
word: guff
word: gup
word: hoax
word: hocus-pocus
word: hogwash
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: horsefeathers
word: horse hockey
word: horse piss
word: horse puckey
word: horseshit
word: humbug
word: Irish bull
word: jabber
word: jargon
word: jibber-jabber
word: jimjam
word: jive
word: junk
word: lallation
word: macaroni
word: malarkey
word: manure
word: meaninglessness
word: moonshine
word: mumbo jumbo
word: nertz
word: nonsense
word: pie in the sky
word: piffle
word: pigswill
word: poppycock
word: prattle
word: put-on
word: rhubarb
word: rhubarb rhubarb
word: rigmarole
word: rot
word: rubbish
word: ruse
word: santorum
word: shit
word: shite
word: skimble-skamble
word: squit
word: stuff
word: stuff and nonsense
word: tommy-rot
word: tosh
word: tush
word: trash
word: tripe
word: twaddle
word: wass
word: whiff-whaff
word: word salad
glosses: Nonsense; meaningless talk.
Derived terms: beefaroni
Chinese macaroni
elbow macaroni
holy macaroni
mac and cheesy
macaronian
macaroni and cheese
macaroni and gravy
macaroni cane
macaroni cheese
macaroni dealer
macaroni dress
macaroni fiddle
macaroni gin
macaroni intelligencer
macaroni marquis
macaroni penguin
macaroni philosopher
macaroni pie
macaroni pudding
macaroni salad
macaroni shrug
macaronism
macaroni soup
macaroni stake
macaroni stall
macaroni tool
macaroni train
macaroni wheat
macaronyish
monkeyrony
pipe macaroni
stuffaroni
tenderoni
Related terms: macaronic