Etymology

In Italian, maccheroni refers to elongated pasta, not necessarily in tubular form. This general meaning is still retained outside Rome and in different languages which borrowed the word.

Maccheroni comes from Italian maccheroni, plural form of maccherone. The academic consensus supports the position that the word is derived from the Greek ,a kind of barley broth which was served to commemorate the dead. In turn, that comes from (mákares) meaning the “blessed ones, blessed dead”, the plural of  (mákar) which means “blessed, happy”; (makários, from (mákar) and (Makários) “Makarios (Latinized form: Macarius”) are derived terms. The many varieties sometimes differ from each other because of the texture of each pasta: rigatoni and tortiglioni, for example, have ridges down their lengths, while chifferi, lumache, lumaconi, pipe, pipette, etc. refer to elbow-shaped pasta similar to macaroni in North American culture.