The Italian word for a joke that is silly or tasteless, or that is supposed to come off as witty but falls flat due to its inappropriateness, is the feminine noun spiritosaggine. Often used in its plural form spiritosaggini, it derives from the adjective spiritoso which can translate as either witty or smart-alecky depending on the context.
la spiritosaggine
una spiritosaggine
le spiritosaggini
delle spiritosaggini
There isn’t really one word in English that precisely captures the essence of spiritosaggine, but some possible translations include wisecrack, witticism, facetious joke, or more colloquially, wiseass remark.
Ne abbiamo abbastanza delle tue spiritosaggini!
We’ve had enough of your wisecracks!
Did you know that?
The feminine suffix -aggine is added to adjectives to form nouns denoting a (typically negative) quality. Some other examples include:
– dabbenaggine (gullibility) – from dabbene (good, honest)
– testardaggine (stubbornness) – from testardo (stubborn)
– sfacciataggine (impudence) – from sfacciato (cheeky)
If you are describing a person’s character rather than the jokes they make, spiritosaggine translates as wittiness or facetiousness.
La sua spiritosaggine dà fastidio a tutti.
His facetiousness gets on everyone’s nerves.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
