Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an Italian.

1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Nov. 44/2: The Dago waits for the traybit and I’m up against it once more. While I’m roominatin’, this spaghetti-eater gets seized with the idea that I’m a takedown.
1930		M. West Babe Gordon (1934) 19: Give me a healthy spaghetti-twister any time.
1933		J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 19: You’re gettin’ so much like them garlic-eatin’ spaghetti-guzzlers over there [...] everybody’ll call you August the Wop.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 26: Colored people, Puerto Ricans like me, an’—even spaghetti-benders like you.
1971		J.D. Horan Blue Messiah 35: You can see ’em sittin’ on the stoops in Guinea Alley. Spaghetti eaters.
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 170: Spaghetti-eater Any Italian, or person of Italian ancestry, after the Italian dietary staple.
1983		Maledicta VII 23: Italians have long been called [...] spaghetti bender, spaghetti eater.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 180: It showed much greater contempt than did Wop, Guinea, or spaghetti-bender.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 13: The French have long been reviled as frogs, [...] the British as limeys, the Mexicans as chili eaters, the Italians as spaghetti benders.
2003		M. La Sorte La Merica 138: An Italian was not an Italian. He was a wop, dago, duke, gin, tally, ghini, macaroni or spaghetti or spaghetti bender.
2012		G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 115: ‘What’d the white boys look like?’ said Jones. ‘Spaghetti benders’.

(US) an Italian community in an urban area.

1986–7

Maledicta IX 57: Spaghetti Corner n [C] Italian community within an urban area.

1. (US) an Italian.

1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 162: Ey Ey Ey, whada you thinka so fonny, you stoonatz spaghetti-heads?
1983		Maledicta VII 23: Italians have long been called [...] spaghetti head.

2. a stupid person.

1987

T. Yacavone N.Y. Times n.p.: You wonder why kids are spacey? Watch enough of this and you turn into a spaghetti-head [R].

a complex of motorways forming a multi-levelled interchange, esp. the Gravelly Hill interchange between the M1 and M6 outside Birmingham, UK.

1975		L. Dills CB Slanguage 102: Spaghetti Bowl: major highway interchange.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 68: Apart from getting snarled up in a spaghetti junction somewhere along the way – dual carriageways whizzing off it in all directions, furiously getting nowhere – it looked as though the old girl was going to get us to our destination.

(orig. US) a cowboy film, usu. made in Europe by Italian directors.

1971		Time 5 Apr. 38: As a swaggering bad guy in spaghetti westerns, Berger began to command fees.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 312: ‘Maybe I ought to say a prayer or something. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you kill somebody?’ ‘Only in spaghetti westerns.’.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 25 July 53: The spaghetti western became respectable.
2000		Guardian Rev. 19 Feb. 5: The yellow Almerian skies under which spags were cheaply shot.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 23 Jan. 57: Sergio Leone, whose 30-year-old career included [...] the creation of the spaghetti western.

(US) an Italian restaurant.

1906

S. Ford Shorty McCabe 64: The spaghetti works was in full blast, with a lot of husky low-brows goin’ in and out.

(US) a neighborhood largely inhabited by Italian-Americans.

1913

Chicago Dly News 25 May q. in Illinois Association for Criminal Justice et al. Illinois Crime Survey 941: In the first ninety-three days of this year, 55 bombs were detonated in the spaghetti zone.

(US) sign used outside bars that which serve neither dish, but are patronised by a sadomasochistic clientele.

1989

Murray & Murrell Lang. Sadomasochism.