Definitions

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

  • noun Pasta in any of various hollow shapes, especially short curved tubes.
  • noun A well-traveled young Englishman of the 1700s and 1800s who affected foreign customs and manners.
  • noun A fop.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vulgar name in Jamaica for a Mexican quarter-dollar, or, afterward, for an English shilling.
  • noun A kind of paste or dough prepared, originally and chiefly in Italy, from the glutinous granular flour of hard varieties of wheat, pressed into long tubes or pipes through the perforated bottom of a vessel furnished with mandrels, and afterward dried in the sun or by low heat.
  • noun A medley; something extravagant or calculated to please an idle fancy.
  • noun A London exquisite of the eighteenth century; a fop; a dandy; a member of the Macaroni Club. See II., 1.
  • noun A crested penguin or rock-hopper: a sailors' name. See penguin, and cut under Eudyptes.
  • Consisting of gay or stylish young men: specifically [capitalized] applied to a London club, founded about the middle of the eighteenth century, composed of young men who had traveled and sought to introduce elegances of dress and bearing from the continent.
  • Of or pertaining to macaronis or fops; exquisite.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Long slender tubes made of a paste chiefly of a wheat flour such as semolina, and used as an article of food; a form of Italian pasta.
  • noun A medley; something droll or extravagant.
  • noun obsolete A sort of droll or fool.
  • noun A finical person; a fop; -- applied especially to English fops of about 1775, who affected the mannerisms and clothing of continental Europe.
  • noun (U. S. Hist.) The designation of a body of Maryland soldiers in the Revolutionary War, distinguished by a rich uniform.

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

  • noun a British dandy in the 18th century who affected Continental mannerisms
  • noun pasta in the form of slender tubes

Etymologies

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

[Italian dialectal maccaroni, pl. of maccarone, small lump of pasta, piece of macaroni, variant of standard Italian maccheroni, pl. of maccherone, perhaps from Greek makariā, barley groats in soup or sauce, especially as served at funeral meals (from makarios, blessed, favored by the gods, from makar, blessed, of unknown origin) or from Byzantine Greek makariōneia, funeral chant (perhaps also formerly used by Greek communities in Italy to designate a funeral meal) : Greek makarios, blessed + aiōnios, eternal (from aiōn, eon; see eon).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian maccaroni, obsolete variant of maccheroni ("macaroni"), plural of maccherone, of uncertain origin.

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  • "1. A vulgar name in Jamaica for a Mexican quarter-dollar, or, afterward, for an English shilling."

    --CD&C

    October 31, 2011