In English, there are separate words for different kinds of careless marks made while writing or drawing. We have blot for a dark stain made by ink, scrawl for illegible handwriting, scribble for something written or drawn in a hurry, and doodle for a poorly drawn picture. In Italian, all these concepts can be expressed …
The Italian word for someone who is very hard to please, especially when it comes to food and drink, is schizzinoso. Possible English translations include picky, fussy or finicky. It may also describe a person who is intolerant of people, things, or manners he or she considers vulgar. The word is thought to derive from …
An interesting verb in Italian that doesn’t really have a precise English equivalent is sgranocchiare which means to eat crunchy foods that crumble easily. Some possible translations in English include to munch, to crunch or to nibble but none of them truly encompass all facets of the word. It is a derivative of the verb …
The word squarciagola in Italian, when preceded by the preposition a (at), is the equivalent of the idiomatic English expressions at the top of one’s lungs or at the top of one’s voice. Note that there is an equivalent expression in Italian: a pieni polmoni (lit. with one’s lungs full). It is a combination of …
A raspberry or Bronx cheer – known as a pernacchia (feminine, plural: pernacchie) in Italian – is a derisive and vulgar sound, performed by blowing through pursed lips with the tongue to obtain a noise similar to that of flatulence. /per·nàc·chia/ It derives from vernacchio which in turn can be traced back to the Latin …
Baleno (masculine) is one way of saying flash or flare in Italian. It derives from the verb balenare which means to flash (in a literal sense) or to pop into one’s head (in a figurative sense). By extension, it can be used to refer specifically to a flash of lightning, though the synonyms lampo, fulmine …