Heather Broster
Aragosta (feminine, plural: aragoste) is what Italians call a lobster, everyone’s favourite large marine crustacean (crostaceo) with stalked eyes and pincers. Both the Italian and English words can be traced back to the Latin locusta, the word for locust. It was presumably called as such because of the similarity in appearance between the two creatures! …
What is furry, cute and classified as both a house pet and a pest? Why, the humble mouse of course! The word for mouse in Italian is topo (masculine, plural: topi), which was originally a dialectal variant of talpa (mole). There are various synonyms for topo when referring to the family of rodent in Italian, …
The Italian word trucco (masculine, plural: trucchi) has different meanings. One of the first that comes to mind is make-up. It can be used in reference to cosmetics applied to the face in order to beautify a person’s appearance, as well as theatrical make-up used to alter a person’s face for live performances, film or …
The word for magic in Italian is magia (feminine, plural: magie). Both words can be traced back to the Latin magica, which in turn comes from the Greek magike (‘the art of magus’). Below are some useful verbs you’ll often see used with magia: Nel medioevo, tutti credevano nella magia. In the Middle Ages, everyone …
The word for both peanut and the peanut plant in Italian is arachide (feminine, plural: arachidi). Just as you can call a peanut a groundnut, goober or monkey nut in English, Italian too has three synonyms: nocciola americana, pistacchio di terra and cece di terra. Le arachidi sono il mio snack preferito. Peanuts are my …
Avere (to have) is one of the most important words in the Italian language. Not only does it function on its own as a verb but it also forms an essential component of compound tenses such as the passato prossimo (present perfect) and futuro anteriore (future perfect). For this reason, it appears in numerous idiomatic …