Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A baked pie of Italian origin consisting of a shallow breadlike crust covered with toppings such as seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, or sausage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable A baked Italian dish of a thinly rolled bread dough crust typically topped before baking with tomato sauce, cheese, and other ingredients such as meat, vegetables or fruit
  • noun countable A single instance of this dish

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun Italian open pie made of thin bread dough spread with a spiced mixture of e.g. tomato sauce and cheese

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Italian, pie, tart, pizza, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German bizzo, pizzo, bite, morsel; see bheid- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First coined 1935, from Italian pizza, of uncertain origin, perhaps from Byzantine Greek πίττα (pitta, "cake, pie"), from Ancient Greek πίσσα (pissa, "pitch"), Attic πίττα (pitta), from πεπτός (peptos, "cooked") or from Langobardic pizza ("bit, bite"), or from Latin pinso ("I beat, pound").

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Examples

  • It was then, that the pizza man went on to open the box completely to reveal the Shakespearean tragi-comedy of it all… the pizza velcro-warmer had done such a phenomenal job at keeping the pizza hot, that all the cheese had crumbled and slid to one entire corner of the pizza…

    ugotsoul Diary Entry ugotsoul 2002

  • It was only after consuming one of these hearty slices that I finally understood the term "pizza pie."

    canada.com Top Stories 2011

  • I have been digging into pizza from a very early age, long before pizza chains descended on Indian cities, long before I moved to graduate school in NYC, where pizza is not just food, it is a food group.

    Archive 2007-09-01 Nupur 2007

  • The meeting between the word pizza and a flat bread or focaccia smeared with tomato sauce lay a long way in the future.

    Delizia! John Dickie 2008

  • Next time I'll try what they call the pizza della nonna -- grandma's pizza -- which is with San Marzano tomatoes, grated pecorino and parmigiano, olive oil -- add anchovies and roasted garlic.

    One For The Table: Capizzi One For The Table 2011

  • Next time I'll try what they call the pizza della nonna -- grandma's pizza -- which is with San Marzano tomatoes, grated pecorino and parmigiano, olive oil -- add anchovies and roasted garlic.

    One For The Table: Capizzi One For The Table 2011

  • Oddly, their pizza is the most similar to what I encounter overseas.

    Everybody Agrees, Midtown Pizza Sucks | Midtown Lunch - Finding Lunch in the Food Wasteland of NYC's Midtown Manhattan 2010

  • Next time I'll try what they call the pizza della nonna -- grandma's pizza -- which is with San Marzano tomatoes, grated pecorino and parmigiano, olive oil -- add anchovies and roasted garlic.

    One For The Table: Capizzi One For The Table 2011

  • I live in chicago and I just thought it was funny how people from outside of chicago thinks chicago pizza is so so while people from chicago think other pizza is awful.

    Homecoming grrm 2010

  • Next time I'll try what they call the pizza della nonna -- grandma's pizza -- which is with San Marzano tomatoes, grated pecorino and parmigiano, olive oil -- add anchovies and roasted garlic.

    One For The Table: Capizzi One For The Table 2011

Comments

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  • My local pizza restaurant is offering, among others, the following varieties: Temptation, Aussie, Trash Can, A Lee, The Bomb, Mafioso and Tiger Feast. If they're all too exotic there's always that great Italian fallback, Capricossia.

    January 20, 2009

  • Misspelling of capricciosa?

    January 20, 2009

  • :->

    January 20, 2009

  • Apparently derived from the medievil greek noun,"pitta" meaning cake/pie

    February 5, 2009

  • 'Yeast pillow

    sailing

    through the green

    oregano air, floats

    down into the bubbling

    rumors of tomatoes,

    the gossip

    of basil and bay leaves,

    stretches at the red

    aromatic massage,

    dreams in layers

    of mozzarella, the black

    oval dozings of olives

    humming in the sun,

    dough that naps

    in the glow

    of laughter,

    round appetite,

    cicular carpet

    shrugging

    at knives and forks,

    tattles

    in many tongues,

    international traveler

    riding red pepper cloud-currents,

    cruising the seas,

    rising

    to grins

    that pull the melted

    cheese, queso, fromage, kaas, ser, keshi, ocha,

    queijo, käse, panir, nailao, queixo,

    formatge, brinzeu, cascaval, , formagio

    from country to country,

    wrapping around us and

    our gold floating globe.

    "Ode to Pizza" by Pat Mora.

    March 6, 2009

  • The future of pizza is pizzarà.

    June 3, 2009

  • Heehee!

    June 3, 2009

  • Wandering frog of the rolling valleys, we had a discussion going a few weeks ago on cone pizza.

    June 4, 2009

  • Hello essays )))

    February 17, 2010

  • SPAM

    February 17, 2010

  • A pizza with radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi*z*z*a --via Reddit.com

    June 27, 2010

  • Still, The state of Kansas is flatter than a pancake.

    June 27, 2010

  • At the wonderful lemur exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo (https://www.sfzoo.org/lipman-family-lemur-forest/), they have little treehouses with heat lamps inside them so the lil lemurs can stay warm on chilly coastal days. We saw lemurs napping right under the heat lamps, looking like a convenience store slices of pizza. So from that day, one specific white and black ruffed lemur was named Pizza, who we invited to come home with us (but politely declined). And also now all lemurs are known as pizza.

    November 14, 2023