English
pizza
Pizza is borrowed from Neapolitan pizza, of uncertain origin.
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English pizza
Lineage
- NeapolitanmodernpizzaWiktionary, English pizza
- EnglishtodaypizzaWiktionary, English pizza
first attested First attested in 1931 (as stated in Wiktionary’s etymology)
The story
First attested in 1931, borrowed from Neapolitan pizza (1590), the dialectal form of Byzantine Greek πίτα (píta, “cake, pie”). The Greek word is first attested in 1107 and is itself of uncertain origin.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. 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’).
Linked words
through Byzantine Greek πίτα ‘cake, pie’
Today it means
noun 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.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “pizza”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Neapolitan pizza / pizza