pizza

The word “pizza” means a baked dish of flattened bread dough topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and other ingredients. In plain terms, the classic round baked bread dish topped with sauce, cheese, and toppings.

“Pizza” is pronounced PEE-tsuh (/ˈpi.tsə/ in IPA).

Here is “pizza” used in a sentence: “We ordered a large pepperoni pizza for the party.”

“Pizza” is a noun.

The word “pizza” dates back to around 1931 and comes from Ancient Greek. Borrowed into English in 1931 from Neapolitan Italian pizza, a word of much-debated origin possibly going back to an ancient Greek word for a flatbread or cake.

“Pizza” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

Modern pizza was born in Naples, Italy, during the 18th and 19th centuries, where flatbreads topped with tomatoes became popular street food for the working poor. The classic Margherita — tomato, mozzarella, and basil — dates to this era. Italian immigrants later carried pizza around the world.

Popular styles include Neapolitan, with a thin, soft base; New York-style, with large foldable slices; Chicago deep-dish, baked thick in a pan; Sicilian, with a thick rectangular crust; and thin, crispy Roman pizza. Each varies in dough, thickness, toppings, and baking method.

Pizza is a specific kind of topped flatbread, defined by its tomato sauce, cheese, and baked-on toppings. Flatbread is the broader category — any thin, flat bread, often plain or lightly seasoned. In short, all pizzas are flatbreads, but not all flatbreads are pizza.