An important word to know if you have a baby or toddler wandering around the house is spigolo which means corner, angle or edge. It is used most frequently to talk about the edges of furniture (particularly tables), walls, boxes, and cubes. Spigolo is a masculine noun that begins with the consonants sp, so it …
After a number of vicious winter storms, the sun is shining for the first time in days, so what better word to talk about than soleggiato, which means sunny or sunlit. As you have probably inferred, it is a derivative of the word sole (sun). Being an adjective, the ending changes to match the gender …
Today we’re going to be discussing the meal that comes between colazione (breakfast) and cena (supper) which is, of course, pranzo (lunch)! Pranzo is a masculine noun that comes directly from the Latin prandium of the same meaning. It takes the following definite and indefinite articles: il pranzothe lunch un pranzoa lunch i pranzithe lunchesdei …
In Italy, in addition to the three main meals – colazione (breakfast), pranzo (lunch) and cena (dinner) – there is a fourth that occurs between lunch and dinner called merenda. Like most words in Italian, merenda derives from the late Latin merere (to deserve), and literally means “things you have to deserve”. /me·rèn·da/ Merenda is …
The Italian word for that pesky insect whose high-pitched buzzing is enough to drive even the most patient of people to the brink of madness is zanzara (mosquito). It comes from the late Latin zinzala which has onomatopoeic origins. /ẓan·ẓà·ra/ Zanzara is a feminine noun, so it takes the following definite and indefinite articles: la …
The word fischio in Italian refers to any kind of high-pitched sound emitted by blowing through the teeth and lips, in addition to a similar range of sounds emitted by birds, animals or objects. Generally we’d translate this word as whistle, but other possible translations include hiss, call, cry, or whizz. Fischio is a masculine …