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mor·ta·del·la

(môr′tə-dĕlə)

A heat-cured Italian sausage usually made of ground pork and cubes of pork fat and flavored with wine and spices.

[Italian, feminine diminutive of murtato, seasoned with myrtle berries, from Latin myrtātus, murtātus, from myrtus, myrta, myrtle; see MYRTLE.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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