Everyday LifeGreek → English
Lasagna
/ləˈzɑːnjə/noun
Flat sheets of pasta, and the baked dish layered from them with sauce and cheese.
The Greek roots
λάσανον
lásanon
cooking trivet, pot stand
Literally: “the pot stand”
Follow a root:λάσανον1 word
The story of the word
The word travelled from a piece of kitchen hardware to the food cooked on it. Greek λάσανον was a trivet or stand for a pot, and in comedy it also meant a close-stool. Latin took it as lasanum, a cooking vessel, and Italian moved the name to the wide flat noodle baked in it. Lasagne is the plural in Italian, which is why both spellings are correct and why one of them is technically a single sheet.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → English
In a sentence
The lasagna needs to sit for ten minutes or it collapses on the plate.