ProbableFrom the people of the place
Italian sandwich
noun · first attested early 20th century
In Maine, ordering "an Italian" gets you a sandwich, not a person.
In Maine, a long soft roll filled with meat, cheese, and raw vegetables dressed in oil.
Record
- Relationship
- From the people of the place
- Confidence
- ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
- Attested
- early 20th century
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Italy
- In English
Italian sandwich
Giovanni Amato, a Neapolitan grocer in Portland, Maine, sold rolls to dockworkers from 1902, and the filled version took his homeland's name rather than a description of its contents. The sandwich stayed a Maine regionalism: elsewhere the same shape is a sub, a hoagie, or a grinder.
Italy
All 63 entries 62 more words from Italy
jeansThe trousers point to Genoa, not to the American West.GenoaparmesanThe grater cheese is an English take on Parma.ParmasybariteThe pleasure-seeker is named for a vanished Greek city in Italy.SybarismagentaThe color is named for a battle in Lombardy.MagentacantaloupeThe melon is named for a papal estate in the Sabine hills.Cantalupo in SabinatarantulaThe spider is named for Taranto.TarantoitalicSlanted type is named for Italy, and more tightly for Venice.VenicesardineThe fish may be named for Sardinia. It also may not.Sardinia