anchovy pizza

1 1.0

A pizza with tomato sauce, cheese, and salty anchovies on top

noun
/ˈænʧoʊvi ˈpiːtsə/

: pizza de anchoas

He made a homemade anchovy pizza using fresh anchovies and a special tomato sauce recipe.

Examples

For dinner, we ordered a large anchovy pizza and shared it while watching a movie.
You got an anchovy pizza you need some help with?

Everybody Wants to Be Italian (2007)
Can I get two Uncle Luigi belly-busters, a double anchovy pizza, and an order of garlic logs?

Chopping Mall (1986)
My favorite pizza topping is an anchovy pizza with extra cheese and a spicy tomato sauce.

Surface Forms

anchovy pizza singular

anchovy pizzas plural

Morphology

anchovy + pizza

The meaning 'a pizza topped with anchovies' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'anchovy' (a preserved fish used for food) with 'pizza' (baked dough with sauce and cheese). This simple noun–noun compounding for food items is cross-linguistically common and follows predictable compositional patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Anchovy pizza comes from a simple picture: a pizza covered with small, salty fish called anchovies. So it now means 'a pizza topped with anchovies'.