piazza

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a public square, especially an open pedestrian square in an Italian town or city

   Musicians performed in the piazza as the evening crowd gathered.

2. 2
   noun

   a veranda, porch, or roofed gallery, chiefly in older American usage

   The family spent summer evenings on the shaded piazza.

Borrowed from Italian piazza, 'public square,' from Medieval Latin platea, 'broad street or courtyard,' ultimately from Greek plateia, 'broad way.' Piazza is a doublet of place and plaza. In American English it also developed the regional sense 'porch or veranda.'

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