Pizzas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of flatbread topped with various ingredients, often including cheese and tomato sauce
2. A popular dish that can be made with numerous toppings to suit different tastes
3. A versatile and beloved food item typically baked in an oven and served in slices

Etymology: "Pizzas" is simply the plural of "pizza," so the story belongs to the singular. "Pizza" entered English in the 1930s, borrowed from Italian, where it was recorded in Naples and the surrounding region by the 1700s with a sense of a flat bread or pie. Its earlier Italian ancestry is debated, with proposals ranging from Lombard and Germanic sources to a Byzantine Greek word, but none is firmly established. The first English citation usually cited is from 1935, in a Time magazine article about Italian immigrant food in the United States, though that attestation is the best-known early record rather than proof of first use. Italian "pizza" itself is a plural-looking form in the regional dialect of the Naples area, which explains why English speakers sometimes treat "pizzas" as the plural of a singular that already looks like one.