piazza

See also: Piazza

English

Etymology

From Italian piazza. Doublet of piatza, place, and plaza.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /piˈæt.sə/, /piˈɑt.sə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) (veranda): IPA^(key): /piˈæ.zə/, /piˈɑ.zə/

Noun

piazza (plural piazzas or piazze)

1. A public square, especially in Italian cities.
   • 2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “St Pancras and King's Cross: 1947”, in RAIL, number 945, page 43:

     Incidentally, the yard in front of the Granary, now a lovely piazza, was once a canal basin that had been filled in decades before.

2. (US dialects, especially New England, dated) A veranda; a porch.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned, […] and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights.

3. (UK) A roofed gallery or arcade (for example around a public square or in front of a building).

Usage notes

• The plural piazze is used especially when the word refers to public squares in Italy, and plural piazzas when it refers to porches.
• In some Southern dialects, the variant form pizer is used.

References

• Thomas Durant Visser, Porches of North America (2012, →ISBN
• “piazza”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• apizza

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpjat.t͡sa/
• Rhymes: -attsa
• Hyphenation: piàz‧za

Etymology 1

From Latin platea, from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa). Doublet of platea. Cognate with Portuguese praça, Spanish plaza, French place, German Platz.

Noun

piazza f (plural piazze)

1. square, plaza
2. market
3. space, post
4. (Rome, figurative) a bald area on the scalp

Synonyms

• (market): mercato
• (bald spot): chierica

Derived terms

• mettere in piazza
• piazzale
• piazzetta

Descendants

• → English: piazza
• → Hungarian: piac (via a northern dialect)
• → Romanian: piață

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

piazza

1. inflection of piazzare:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• pazzia