Today’s ‘word of the day’ is part of our Italian Halloween Word series. On the days leading up to Halloween, we’ll post a word that is related to this spooky time of year. Enjoy! 🦇 The Italian word for everyone’s favourite winged Halloween creature is pipistrello (masculine, plural: pipistrelli). It comes from the Latin vespertilio, …
The word for squirrel in Italian is scoiattolo (masculine, plural: scoiattoli). Both terms can be traced back to the Greek skiouros, which is a combination of skia (shadow) and oura (tail). The diminutive scoiattolino can be used to indicate a small squirrel or a squirrel kitten. When you imagine a typical squirrel, what comes to …
The word for whale in Italian is balena (feminine, plural: balene), which comes from the Latin balaena. When talking about a young whale calf or balena giovane, the diminutives balenottero or balenotto are used. Whales are amongst the largest marine mammals (mammiferi marini) on earth, and are characterised by their streamlined hairless bodies, horizontal tail …
The word for tiger in Italian is the feminine noun tigre (plural: tigri) which derives from the Latin tigris. It remains feminine regardless of whether you are talking about a male tiger (una tigre maschio) or a female tiger (una tigre femmina). It is the largest of the so-called big cats (grandi felini) that make …
The word for dragon in Italian is drago (masculine, plural: draghi). It comes from the Latin draco which in turn comes from the Greek drakon meaning serpent. Note: Anglophone learners of Italian might be tempted to use the synonym dragone since it sounds closer to the English word but drago is the preferred term. La …
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! …