Not just a pastry: Do you know the many meanings of 'pastizz'?

Seeing as pastizz is probably the first word people learn when they land in Malta, the savoury pastry was among the first to make it into the new national digital dictionary Dizzjunarju.mt. 

It has been a good year, linguistically, for pastizz.

Earlier this year, pastizz made it to the Oxford English Dictionary, the ultimate historical record of the English language that also features lampuki, dgħajsa, festa and spitchered - a naval slang entry meaning “rendered inoperative, ruined” derived from spiċċa.

But while there is only one meaning in the OED (a savoury pastry typically filled with ricotta or curried peas), the meanings and connotations of pastizz in Malta are numerous.

It could mean anything from a side cap or a fedora to a good-for-nothing person. It is also used to refer to female genitalia, and could colloquially be used to mean to drive someone up the wall (dejjaqlu l-pastizz).

If someone does not care about something or someone, they could say they are għala l-pastizz, and if something is sold like hot cakes, or handed out left, right and centre like building permits, one could say they are being sold or issued bħall-pastizzi.

If you want to learn more about the word pastizz, check out the entry here, and if you think the researchers have missed out on a meaning, get in touch here. 

Dizzjunarju.mt is a free, authoritative and up-to-date reference resource that has started taking shape and went live on Friday.

It is accessible on any mobile device. It is set to become the first national digital dictionary of Maltese and is currently being developed by the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta.

It builds on the work done in the sector over the past decades while remaining abreast of the current use of the language and will take years to compile.

Among others, its features include a pronunciation tab, definitions in Maltese and English equivalents, grammatical information such as which part of speech the word falls under, its plural, root (għerq) and etymology.

The site also provides information about the various meanings of a word, examples based on the natural use of the language, idioms and phrases. 

The main editors are academics Michael Spagnol and Dwayne Ellul, while Julian ‘Julinu’ Mallia takes care of the site’s artistic direction. The researchers are Bradley Cachia, Daniel Attard, Jean Paul Borg, John Paul Grima and Michela Vella.

Times of Malta and dizzjunarju.mt have teamed up, and every week for a limited time, timesofmalta.com will feature a word from the dictionary and publish a short clip highlighting as many colloquial references as possible.  

The clips were produced by Antoine Farrugia Lauri and Kristina Vella.