confetti

Etymology

Borrowed (possibly via French) from Italian confetti (literally “confections”), used to describe sugar-coated almonds, and by extension things imitating them (like pellets of plaster), which were thrown in Italy during festivities like Carnival and weddings.^[1][2] (This practice is mentioned in English since at least the 1810s.^[3][4]) The French and the English adopted the practice of celebrating weddings and other festivities by throwing such candies, or (by the late 1800s) tiny pieces of colored paper symbolizing them,^[5][6][7] partially displacing their earlier practice of throwing rice.^[2]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛ.ti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛti
• Hyphenation: con‧fet‧ti

Noun

confetti (uncountable)

1. Small pieces or strips (streamers) of colored paper or other material (metal, plaster, etc) generally thrown about at festive occasions, especially at weddings and in victory celebrations.
2. (rare) Edible Italian sugar-coated almonds, especially those which are used as part of a traditional Italian wedding.
   • 1870, Henry T. Tuckerman, in the Boston Transcript, quoted in The New York Observer Yearbook and Almanac, page 143:

     [...] a pale and fair devotee of fashion who has left off eating confetti, and recovered her bloom.

   • 1959, Loren Wahl, Lorenzo Madalena, Confetti for Gino:

     "Why, if you and Teresa, our own best man and maid of honor . . . oh, how wonderful that would be, to eat confetti at your wedding!"

   • 1975, Garibaldi Marto Lapolla, The grand Gennaro, Ayer Co. Pub.:

     Emilio and Roberto had pooled their resources in money and had arranged with the cafe keeper for steaming thick chocolate, a slow-pouring syrup-like drink, the richest boccotoni, cream-filled heavy sfogliate, and almond confetti.

   • 1986, Anne Paolucci, Sepia tones: seven short stories, Council on Natl Literature, →ISBN:

     There were large trays with assorted pastries and colored almond confetti for a wedding, and he remembered with a pang that this very day was the wedding anniversary, the day Pino and Maria had married (so long ago!) in Rome.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:confetti.

Verb

confetti (third-person singular simple present confettis, present participle confettiing, simple past and past participle confettied)

1. (transitive) To scatter with confetti.

References

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian confetti (plural), reinterpreted as a singular (compare spaghetti). Doublet of confit. See English confetti for more. The shift of the sense from little projectiles made of plaster to coloured pieces of paper originated in the late 19th century in Paris with their use during public festivities.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.fe.ti/

Noun

confetti m (plural confettis)

1. (chiefly in the plural) confetti

Further reading

• “confetti”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Noun

confetti m pl

1. plural of confetto

Verb

confetti

1. inflection of confettare:
   1. second-person singular present indicative
   2. first/second/third-person singular present subjunctive
   3. third-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• confitte

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Italian confetti.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -ɛti, (Brazil) -ɛt͡ʃi

Noun

confetti m pl or (proscribed) m (sometimes plural only, in variation, plural confettis)

1. Alternative form of confete

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian confetti or French confetti.

Noun

confetti f (uncountable)

1. confetti

Noun

confetti m (plural confettis)

1. Misspelling of confeti.