macaroni
part of speech
noun (macaroni — uncountable; old: a macaroni, macaronies)
meaning for a pupil
1) A kind of pasta in short, curved tubes. tree →
2) (history, 18th century) A young man who wore very fancy, showy clothes and a big wig, copying the fashions of Europe. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday cooking: macaroni cheese (UK) or mac and cheese (US). In history and music lessons: the old song «Yankee Doodle» says he «stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni» — meaning he thought a feather made him a fine, fashionable gentleman; British soldiers sang it to mock the Americans.
examples
- We had macaroni cheese for dinner. tree →
- Macaroni is made from wheat flour and water. tree →
- Boil the macaroni for ten minutes. tree →
- Yankee Doodle «stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni». tree →
- In the 1770s a macaroni wore a huge wig. tree →
- We made a necklace by threading dry macaroni. tree →
- He tried the straw, but, as he chewed away at it, he noticed to his great disappointment that it tasted neither like rice nor like macaroni. tree →
note
Uncountable as food: «some macaroni», not «a macaroni». Ends in -i, from Italian «maccheroni».
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «macaroni» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.