Today we are investigating an idiomatic expression with an exact English equivalent, just to make life a little easier on you! The idiom is ammazzare il tempo, which literally means to kill time.
ammazzare il tempo
to kill time
Ammazzare is a verb in Italian that signifies to kill or murder. While uccidere is a common synonym, the former conveys a notion of a more brutal death devoid of any mercy.
Of course, in this context, ammazzare is being used figuratively, just like the English to kill. It describes the act of occupying oneself, usually while waiting for something else to happen.
Cosa fai per ammazzare il tempo?
What do you do to kill time?
If you don’t like the verb ammazzare, there is another way of wording this in Italian which is passare il tempo (to pass the time) or far passare il tempo (to make the time pass).
Cosa fai per passare il tempo?
What do you do to pass the time?
But if you want to say that you have time to kill? In this case, neither ammazzare nor passare will do. Instead, you need to use one of the following expressions avere tempo da vendere (literally “to have time to sell“), non avere niente da fare (to not have anything to do), or avere (del) tempo libero (to have free time).
Sono arrivato in anticipo quindi ho un po’ di tempo libero.
I arrived there early so I have a bit of time to kill.
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.
