The word for a person (usually a king or ruler) who holds absolute power, and exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way, is despota in Italian. It comes from the Greek despótēs which was the word for the “master of the house”. In ancient Italian, the word ended in an -o rather than an …
Where we live in Wales, it feels like there’s a castle around every corner. But Italy, too, boasts its fair share of stunning castles, my favourite being Castel dell’Ovo in Naples! As you may have guessed, the Italian word for castle is castello. castello castle Castello is derived directly from the Latin castellum, which is …
Some words are staples of everyday conversation, and in Italian, dunque is one of them. dunque so / therefore / well Dunque is a conjunction, adverb and even a noun as we’ll discover further down. It originates from Late Latin dunc, which is likely a blend of dumque (meaning “while, at the same time”) and …
While listening to Radio Italia, a word caught my attention during a report about how Germans no longer embody the Protestant work ethic as strongly as they did just a few years ago. That word was stacanovista—the Italian term for a workaholic. stacanovista workaholic / hard worker This word derives from the noun stacanovismo (or …
The other day, while we were having lunch at our favourite local restaurant in Turin, the waiter—looking more cheerful than usual—came over and asked if he could share a few of his favourite freddure (the Italian word for puns or quips). He proceeded to list three, but we only managed to understand one! freddura pun …
Some Italian words take time to master because they lack a precise or direct equivalent in English. The adverb ormai is a prime example of this. ormai While ormai is commonly translated as now, by now, at this point, nearly, finally, anymore, and already, it’s not always clear when each translation is appropriate. Given its …