Everyday LifeGreek → English
Macaroon
/ˌmækəˈruːn/noun
A small cake of ground almonds or coconut bound with egg white and sugar.
The Greek roots
μάκαρ
mákar
blessed, happy
Literally: “blessed food”
Follow a root:μάκαρ1 word
The story of the word
The biscuit reached English in the 17th century from French macaron, itself Italian maccarone, which is the same word as macaroni. Where the Italian comes from is genuinely open: one long-standing proposal points to Greek μακαρία, a barley dish linked to funeral meals and built on μάκαρ, blessed, while another derives it from a verb for crushing or pounding. Nobody has closed the question, so the sweetest word in this list has the shakiest pedigree.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Italian → French → English (first step disputed)
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
macaronimacaronic
In a sentence
Coconut macaroons keep for a week; the almond ones are gone by Tuesday.
She spells it with two o's and means the coconut sort, which starts an argument every time.