spaghetti

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A type of pasta made in the shape of long thin strings.

   Her mother was cooking spaghetti for dinner.

2. 2
   noun

   Something physically resembling spaghetti (noun 1 sense 1) in appearance or consistency, or in being tangled.

   spaghetti grid    spaghetti junction    spaghetti limbs    spaghetti strap    spaghetti stripes

3. 3
   noun

   Something confusing or intricate.

   The lands along the Danube, by contrast, seemed wide open. That is, if he could find his way through them. “Arrows drawn on maps build up into an astonishing spaghetti of population movement,” Mr. Winder writes, and a single city like Lviv, now in Ukraine, might also have been called Lemberg, Lemberik, Lwow or Lvov.

4. 4
   verb

   To serve (someone) spaghetti (noun noun 1 sense 1).

   Visiting members expected to attend, and all will be properly spaghettied.

5. 5
   verb

   To cause (someone or something) to become, or appear to become, longer and thinner; to stretch.

   He spaghettied the referee when he landed on him.

6. 6
   verb

   To cause (something) to become tangled.

   All these are spaghettied together, as the following boxscore will show: […]

7. 7
   verb

   To eat spaghetti (noun noun 1 sense 1).

   I have "spaghettied" from Ventimiglia to Brindisi and I doubt if I have ever eaten as excellent spaghetti, certainly none better nor richer, than I have enjoyed in the home of a very charming Maryland hostess.

8. 8
   verb

   To become, or appear to become, longer and thinner.

   The oldest Lark spaghettied down to a noodle and slithered through the letterbox-like hole at the bottom of the cistern.

Etymology

The noun is borrowed from Italian spaghetti, the plural of spaghetto (“dish of spaghetti; (rare) strand of spaghetti”), from spago (“cord, string, twine; thread”) + -etto (diminutive suffix). Spago is derived from Latin spagus (“twine”), probably from Ancient Greek σφάκος (sphákos, “apple sage (Salvia pomifera)”), probably from . The verb is derived from the noun.