Word.ws English Dictionary

pesto

/ˈpɛstəʊ/US/ˈpɛstoʊ/

pesto noun: a sauce, especially for pasta, originating from the Genoa region in Italy, made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and cheese (usually pecorino).

pesto: a sauce, especially for pasta, originating from the Genoa region in Italy, made from basil, garlic,...
Image: Ɱ, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pesto (usually uncountable, plural pestos)

  1. (usually) A sauce, especially for pasta, originating from the Genoa region in Italy, made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and cheese (usually pecorino).
    • For variation, easy cooking and good eating, slather some pesto on the fish of your choice and bake.1988 November 13, M. H. Reed, “‘Clean Eating’ for the Holidays”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC
    • Inside the house, Paul is in the kitchen bent over a bowl of pesto: thick shiny basil leaves, machete-crushed garlic cloves, pine nuts, onions roasted till their gold edges blacken, and the bright scent of lemon zest.2019, Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Jonathan Cape, page 221

pesto meaning in Arabic and Persian

pesto in Arabic

an Italian sauce especially for pasta
بِيسْتُو bīstū, بِسْتُو bistū

pesto in Persian

an Italian sauce especially for pasta
پستو

Forms of pesto

pluralpestos

Origin of pesto

Appears 1850 in Cottage economy, attributed to William Cobbett (but not found in any editions published during his life). From Italian pesto, from Latin pistus (“crushed, pounded”), from Latin pīnsō (“to pound, beat, crush”). Cognate to pestle.

Words formed from pesto

Words that rhyme with pesto

Questions about pesto

What does pesto mean?
Pesto means a sauce, especially for pasta, originating from the Genoa region in Italy, made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and cheese (usually pecorino).
What is pesto in Arabic?
Pesto in Arabic is بِيسْتُو (bīstū), بِسْتُو (bistū). See Pesto meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is pesto?
Pesto is a noun.
How do you pronounce pesto?
Pesto is pronounced /ˈpɛstoʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of pesto?
The plural of pesto is pestos.

Words near pesto in the dictionary

  1. pestles
  2. pestles and mortars
  3. pestlike
  4. pestling
  5. Pestminster
  6. pesto
  7. pestoed
  8. pestolike
  9. pestological
  10. pestologist
  11. pestologists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pesto (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pesto.wav.

Cite this entry: “pesto.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pesto. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.