Famigerato is an adjective that derives from the Latin word famigeratus, the past participle of famigerare meaning “to make famous”. In ancient Italian, the original meaning was famous, used in a positive or ironic sense, but over time, the meaning shifted to infamous or notorious. Adjectives such as famigerato always agree with the noun they …
The moment I entered an Italian bathroom for the first time, I was taken aback by the presence of a peculiar fixture resembling a secondary sink placed next to the toilet. Despite being completely and utterly unfamiliar with it, it didn’t require much imagination to deduce its true purpose! The bidet, pronounced as bidè in …
If you find yourself tired of repeatedly using the conjunctions ma (but) and però (but / however), you might be interested in adding a more advanced conjunction to your vocabulary: eppure! In Italian, eppure is used to express a sense of contradiction or surprise. It is often translated as (and) yet, still or but in …
If you have started reading more advanced material in Italian, such as newspapers or journals, you will certainly have come across the word bensì. Composed of the words bene (good) and sì (yes), bensì is mainly used as a conjunction whose purpose is to introduce a statement that opposes or contradicts a previous statement. It …
Dreams, those ethereal and enigmatic realms of our imagination, have captivated human minds for centuries. In the Italian language, the word for dream is sogno, which comes from the Latin word of the same meaning, somnium. Sogno, being a masculine noun, takes the following definite and indefinite articles: It is closely related to the verb …
Do you often find yourself a million miles away while listening to other people speak? Then today’s word is for you! Sovrappensiero is an adverb that means “lost in thought” “absent-mindedly” or “distractedly”. It is the combination of sovra- (a variant of sopra- meaning “above” or “over”) and pensiero (thought). The addition of the extra …