Mac`a*ro"ni (?), n.; pl. Macaronis (#), or Macaronies. [Prov. It. macaroni, It. maccheroni, fr. Gr. &?; happiness, later, a funeral feast, fr. &?; blessed, happy. Prob. so called because eaten at such feasts in honor of the dead; cf. Gr. &?; blessed, i. e., dead. Cf. Macaroon.] 1. Long slender tubes made of a paste chiefly of wheat flour, and used as an article of food; Italian or Genoese paste.

&fist; A paste similarly prepared is largely used as food in Persia, India, and China, but is not commonly made tubular like the Italian macaroni. Balfour (Cyc. of India).

2. A medley; something droll or extravagant.

3. A sort of droll or fool. [Obs.] Addison.

4. A finical person; a fop; -- applied especially to English fops of about 1775. Goldsmith.

5. pl. (U. S. Hist.) The designation of a body of Maryland soldiers in the Revolutionary War, distinguished by a rich uniform. W. Irving.

• (uncountable) A type of pasta in the form of short tubes.
  
• (used by Italian-Americans, especially in Philadelphia and New Jersey) A generic term for pasta.
  
• (pejorative) In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a man who dressed and often spoke in an ostentatiously affected and effeminate manner.
  
• A sort of droll or fool; a fop; – applied especially to English fops of about 1775.