Heather Broster
Humans have devised various ways to divide time, encompassing the tiniest increments of seconds and minutes to the vast expanse of years, decades, and centuries. Tucked right in the middle lies the unassuming month, known as mese in Italian, serving as the fundamental unit for dividing our calendar year. Mese is a masculine noun in …
You’re chatting with your friend about someone when suddenly and unexpectedly, that person appears around the corner. There’s a perfect Italian idiom to describe this kind of encounter: “Parli del diavolo e spuntano le corna” which translates to “Speak of the devil and the horns appear.“ This well-known idiomatic expression serves as a playful means …
Since launching Daily Italian Words back in 2019, I have been deeply moved by the overwhelming number of emails we have received from individuals sharing their personal motivations for learning the Italian language. Some of you have humbly shared the tale of growing up in an Italian-immigrant household, where the use of the language was …
It should be pretty easy to guess the meaning of the word momento just by mentally removing the word-final o! Momento comes from the Latin momentum, derived from the root of movere meaning “to move”. Because it is a masculine noun, it takes the following definite and indefinite articles: Aspetta un momento, non sono ancora …
Famigerato is an adjective that derives from the Latin word famigeratus, the past participle of famigerare meaning “to make famous”. In ancient Italian, the original meaning was famous, used in a positive or ironic sense, but over time, the meaning shifted to infamous or notorious. Adjectives such as famigerato always agree with the noun they …
The moment I entered an Italian bathroom for the first time, I was taken aback by the presence of a peculiar fixture resembling a secondary sink placed next to the toilet. Despite being completely and utterly unfamiliar with it, it didn’t require much imagination to deduce its true purpose! The bidet, pronounced as bidè in …