If you are familiar with the word tortuous in English, you should have no trouble remembering its Italian equivalent tortuoso, which usually translates as windy or winding in everyday English. Adjectives such as tortuoso always agree with the noun they describe, which means that they have to demonstrate whether they are masculine or feminine and …
The word for chin in Italian is mento. It derives from the Latin mentum of the same meaning. Being a masculine noun, mento takes the following definite and indefinite articles: il mentothe chinun mentoa chin i mentithe chinsdei menti(some) chins Mi sono svegliato con un brufolo enorme sul mento! I woke up with a huge …
The word for an hourglass or egg timer in Italian is clessidra. It derives from the Latin clepsydra which in turn comes from the Greek klepsýdra (water clock). Clessidra is a feminine noun and takes the following articles: Hourglasses were commonly used by ancient people to measure il passaggio del tempo (the passage of time) …
Today’s word of the day is fiuto, which comes from the verb fiutare meaning to to smell / to sniff. Fiuto is a masculine noun, so it takes the following definite and indefinite articles. il fiutoun fiuto i fiutidei fiuti Fiuto is most frequently used to talk about an animal’s sense of smell, or even …
Tea will forever be my preferred hot drink, whether I’m at home, in a coffee shop, or on the road travelling. And if someone serves me a bad cuppa in the morning – well – that’s enough to put me in a bad mood for the rest of my day! Italians have the same affinity …
Semaforo, also known as a semaforo stradale, is the word for a traffic light in Italian. It is from the French ‘sémaphore’, which was formed irregularly from the Greek sēma ‘sign’ and –phoros ‘bearing’. If you feel this word looks familiar, that’s because it shares the same origin as the English word semaphore, a system …