Everyday LifeGreek → English
Pastry
/ˈpeɪstri/noun
Dough of flour and fat baked into a crust, or an item made from it.
The Greek roots
πάστη
pástē
barley porridge
Literally: “made of sprinkled dough”
Follow a root:πάστη2 words
The story of the word
The word is built on paste, from Late Latin pasta, itself from Greek πάστη, a salted barley mash. English pastry first named the room where the pastry-cook worked, then the dough, and only later a single sweet thing on a plate. It is the same word as pasta, arrived by a different road, which is why an Italian pasta and a Danish pastry are linguistically the same substance.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
Same family
pastapastepastypâté
In a sentence
The pastry was still cold, which is the only reason it worked.