Italian Word of the Day: Stravolto (twisted / upset / exhausted)

Stravolto is an adjective you can expect to hear fairly often in daily Italian conversation, but what does it mean? Let’s take a look now! Stravolto comes from the verb stravolgere which means “to turn something on its head” “to distort” or “to upset”, or in a more positive sense, “to revolutionise”. It is the …

Read more

Italian Word of the Day: Prevenuto (biased / prejudiced)

In a world filled with diverse cultures and individuals, it’s all too common for biases and prejudices to arise before we even have a chance to truly understand each other. A person with these negative characteristics can be described as prevenuto in Italian. The adjective prevenuto is in its masculine form, indicated by its ending …

Read more

Italian Word of the Day: Odierno (of today, current)

Today we’re going to be looking at odierno, an adjective that you will regularly encounter once you begin reading the advanced texts such as the news or academic papers. It literally means “relevant to the current day, age or era” and in English, it would generally translate as of today, today’s, current or modern. Odierno …

Read more

Italian Word of the Day: Spinoso (thorny / prickly)

Lately my two-year-old son has been very keen on discovering the various plants that grow in our local woodland. Although most plants are safe to touch, there are a few thorny fiends that will give you a nasty prick if you aren’t careful! Spinoso is the adjective Italians use when they want to describe something …

Read more

Italian Word of the Day: Allora (so / then / at that time)

An Italian word that many of our readers and followers on Facebook have been requesting is allora, so let’s dive straight in! Allora is an extremely flexible word in that it can function as an adverb, conjunction or adjective depending on how it is used in a sentence. We’ve decided this article into three sections …

Read more

Italian Word of the Day: Certo (certain / sure / of course)

Certo is the Italian word for certain or sure. It derives from the Latin certum, the past participle of cernĕre meaning “to distinguish”. Being an adjective, its form changes to match the gender and/or number of the noun it describes. We should start out with some good news for English speaking learners: certo covers more …

Read more