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confetti

UK/kənˈfɛ.ti/US/kənˈfɛ.ti/
nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,644 of 15,258neutral

Confetti is the small pieces of coloured paper thrown at a celebration. Weddings mostly, and it gets everywhere.

It is a mass noun with no plural, so you throw confetti rather than confettis. Many churches and venues now ban paper and allow only dried petals, which biodegrade. The word is Italian and originally meant sweets, which is what was thrown at carnivals before paper took over. English has a vivid image in torn to confetti, meaning shredded into tiny pieces.

Felix Russell-Saw frsphoto · CC0

Definitions of confetti

  1. 1nounconfettiSmall pieces of coloured paper thrown at celebrations.B1+

    “There was confetti all over the church steps.”

Where it comes from

  1. Italian

    confetto

  2. English, today

    confetti

Borrowed (possibly via French) from Italian confetto literally “confections”, used to describe sugar-coated almonds, and by extension things imitating them (like pellets of plaster), which were thrown in Italy during festivities like Carnival and weddings. (This practice is mentioned in English since at least the 1810s.) The French and the English adopted the practice of celebrating weddings and other festivities by throwing such candies, or (by the late 1800s) tiny pieces of colored paper symbolizing them, partially displacing their earlier practice of throwing rice.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Weddings & Celebrations

First appears in chapter 34 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

confetti in the wild

  • Originally stock ticker paper tape was used, but confetti is now used.

    Ticker-tape parade

  • The origins are from the Latin confectum, with confetti the plural of Italian confetto, small sweet.

    Confetti

  • A distinction is made between confetti and glitter; glitter is smaller than confetti (pieces usually no larger than 1 mm) and is universally shiny.

    Confetti

  • The shell is then cleaned out, decorated as desired, and allowed to dry, before it is filled with confetti or a small toy.

    Cascarón

  • Due to the clonal nature of the growth of the normal skin cells, it appears the patient is covered with confetti, hence the name of the condition.

    Ichthyosis with confetti

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.