If, in English, you want to say that somebody’s house, a shop or a restaurant is very close to where you live, you can rely on the very useful expression “a stone’s throw away” or “within a stone’s throw.” In Italian, there is a very similar expression that replaces stones with muskets. Let’s discover it now!
a un tiro di schioppo
a stone’s throw away
The idiom in Italian is a un tiro di schioppo, with schioppo referring to a specific kind of old-fashioned firearm that can be translated as musket or flintlock in English. It was the very first portable firearm and had a range of just 300 meters according to Esercito Italiano.
Tiro, on the other hand, refers to a shot in this case, though it can also mean kick or toss in a sporting context. This means that the literal translation is something along the lines of “a musket shot away.”
Il negozio di Maurizio è a un tiro di schioppo da casa mia.
Maurizio’s shop is a stone’s throw from my house.
Whether you’re tossing a stone or firing a shot, the distance is modest; you can reach either destination within a minute or two on foot. In both cases, the metaphor is clear: whatever you’re looking for is just a short stroll away.
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.
