pitta

American

[pit-uh] / ˈpɪt ə /

noun

any of several brilliantly colored, passerine birds of the family Pittidae, inhabiting dark, Old World, tropical forests.

pitta ¹ British

/ ˈpɪtə /

noun

another name for pitta bread

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

pitta ² British

/ ˈpɪtə /

noun

any of various small brightly coloured ground-dwelling tropical birds of the genus Pitta

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of pitta

First recorded in 1830–40, pitta is from the Telugu word piṭṭa bird

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

pitta

I chose pitta for its transformative, cooling properties, and kapha for its stabilizing, anti-inflammatory ones.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2025

Other footage showed bags of flour being unloaded at a bakery and hundreds of pitta breads rolling out of its ovens on conveyor belts.

From BBC ● May 22, 2025

Treat wraps and pittas in the same way to make excellent healthy crisps and pitta chips.

From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2022

Use as fresh salad or as a pickle in some pitta bread with cheese or chicken.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 15, 2020

Nearly every morning—generally the first bird obtained, and only seen thus early—a beautiful pitta was shot.

From In the Andamans and Nicobars The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin" by C. Boden Kloss

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023