capellini - this is a very thin, long noodle, sometimes called “angel hair pasta” by English speakers.

It looks a little bit like a bellflower, which is why the name is a diminutive of the Italian campana (“bell”).

campanelle - this noodle is a rolled up piece of pasta dough with a ruffled edge that spirals along the outside.

That’s why its name is the diminutive of buco (“hole”), making the name effectively “small holes.” In Neapolitan, it’s called perciatelli, which comes from perciato (“pierced”). bucatini - this is a thick, long pasta that is most famous for having a hole that runs down its length.Realizing what they’re named after, it’ll be more fun to go through your grocery store’s extensive noodle selection. Now that you know the suffixes, let’s look at the most popular pasta shapes you might run into. After all, you never have “noodle” for dinner. It should also be noted that all of these suffixes are plural. That’s because spaghetti is the diminutive of spaghe (“strings”), meaning that spaghetti was named “small strings.” You might notice that spaghetti already has a “small” suffix in its name. spaghettacci - throwing in just one more, -acci is a more informal suffix that means “badly done.” If you leave the spaghetti in the boiling water for too long and make it too soft, you might get spaghettaci.spaghettoni - larger, thicker spaghetti.spaghetti - medium, or “regular-sized” spaghetti.To take an example, let’s look at how various versions of one of the most popular noodles are named. “Small” Suffixes: -ini, -elli, -illi, -etti, -ine, -elle

Italian has a number of affectionate suffixes that indicate something is small or large, and they’re used quite a bit in Italian. Pasta Suffixesīefore we go into specific pasta shapes, there’s another hint that can help you figure out pastas: the suffixes. This won’t give you the secrets to choosing the right noodle for any sauce, but it’s a good start. Fortunately, many pasta shapes are Italian words for the thing they resemble, which provides a pretty good way to remember which is which. Here, we’ll break down some of the most popular pasta shapes to help you decode what they mean. Yet with just a little studying, you’ll be able to build up a good amount of noodle knowledge. With so much variety, learning about the pasta shapes can seem like a Sisyphean task. A conservative estimate is that there are 350 pasta shapes in the world today, whereas some people put estimates as high as 1,300. How many pasta shapes can you name? If you’re a noodle savant, you might be able to list into the dozens, but you might be surprised to learn that there are hundreds.

Types of pasta