pasta

English pasta was borrowed from Italian pasta ("paste; pasta, noodles"), from Late Latin pasta ("dough, pastry cake, paste"), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, "barley porridge"). That Greek word was the neuter plural of παστός (pastós, "sprinkled with salt"), from πάσσω (pássō, "to sprinkle").

The Greek root described a salted grain porridge, not noodles at all; by the time the word passed through Late Latin as "dough" or "paste," it had already shifted toward the general idea of a worked, doughy substance, which Italian then narrowed to the noodle dishes we know today.

Pasta is a doublet of English paste — both descend from the same Late Latin pasta, one route staying with the French-derived "paste," the other borrowed directly from Italian as "pasta." That same Late Latin root also underlies "copy-paste," from which the internet slang "copypasta" was blended, later clipped down to a second, unrelated English word "pasta."