Heather Broster
If you are shocked or stunned by something to the extent that all colour drains from your face, a great word you can use to describe this feeling in Italian is allibito. allibito shocked / stunned Allibito is an adjective whose ending changes in accordance with the gender and number of the subject. If the …
Whenever you narrowly manage to do something or just miss something, you can use the Italian idiomatic expression per un pelo, which literally means for a hair. Some possible English equivalents include by the skin of one’s teeth or by a hair’s breadth, but more often than not, we use simple adverbs such as nearly, …
There are two possible interpretations for the adjective spiritoso (feminine: spiritosa, plural: spiritosi / spiritose) in Italian. spiritoso On one hand, it characterises a witty, clever, or funny person, or something, such as a joke (battuta) or response (risposta), that is witty or entertaining. Daniele fa sempre battute spiritose. Daniele always makes witty jokes. On …
On the weekend, one of our favourite pass-times as a family is going on a walk in the woods. In Italian, woods translates to bosco. bosco wood(s) / woodland Bosco is a masculine noun, derived from the West Germanic busk or bosk, with its plural form being boschi. Here are its definite and indefinite articles: …
An Italian idiom I learned from my husband early on in our relationship is arrampicarsi sugli specchi, which literally translates to climbing on mirrors. (And yes, before you ask, this is something of which I am guilty at times!) arrampicarsi sugli specchi to make desperate excuses to justify oneself or a situation Figuratively, it refers …
Last Christmas, I bought my son three adorable little stuffed owls with the softest fur imaginable. Fast-forward to July, and they all looked like something the cat dragged in. In Italian, the word arruffato perfectly describes the disheveled, ruffled, tangled or matted state of hair or fur, whether it’s on a person, animal, or well-loved …