Balordo is one of those fun Italian adjectives that you will rarely see in a textbook, but comes up all the time in casual conversation between native speakers. Its etymological origin has not been confirmed. It may derive from the French balourd, which in turn comes from the ancient French beslourd. Learn with our video …
The generic name for a baked sweet that is round in shape and made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, butter and eggs is torta (feminine, plural: torte). Although cake is the most common translation in English, it may also denote a pie. Learn with our video Some different kinds of sweet torte people enjoy …
The adjective sfasato in Italian, which derives from the verb sfasare (to dephase), is used in technical terms to mean out of phase mainly in reference to motors and electrical currents. Learn with our video What should be of interest to most learners of Italian isn’t so much the technical but rather the figurative meaning …
The word spazzolino (masculine, plural: spazzolini) in Italian literally means ‘little brush’ and can be used to denote a brush, or spazzola, with small dimensions. However, if someone uses this word without any surrounding context, you can safely assume that they are talking about a toothbrush, with the full name being spazzolino da denti. Learn …
The Italian word for music is the similar sounding musica (feminine, plural: musiche). Both words can be traced back to the Greek mousikē (tekhnē) which means (art) of the Muses. Learn with our video Like the English word, musica is used to talk about not only the combination of melodic vocals and sounds itself, but …
The adjective pignolo (also written as pignuolo in rare cases) in Italian is used to describe someone who is fussy, pedantic or extremely meticulous in nature. Learn with our video It derives from the word pigna (pine cone), but precisely how it came to denote a fussy person is uncertain. According to Treccani, this figurative …