Italian Word of the Day
How to Say “Phone Number” in Italian – Numero di Telefono
The Italian word for phone number is numero di telefono (masculine, plural: numeri di telefono). All About Italian Phone Numbers Landline numbers (numeri fissi) always start with the digit 0 and are 6 to 11 digits long. For example, in the city of Turin where we used to live, all landline numbers have the area …
Italian Word of the Day: Sosia (lookalike / doppelgänger)
The other day, my husband and I decided to watch Johnny Stecchino, an Italian comedy from the early 1990s directed by and starring the fantastically funny Roberto Benigni. The story follows Dante, a naive yet kind-hearted bus driver and part-time banana thief, whose uncanny physical resemblance to Sicilian mobster-turned-police informant Johnny Stecchino lands him in …
Italian Word of the Day: Impavido (fearless)
One way of saying fearless or undaunted in Italian is impavido. It comes from the Latin impavidus which is a combination of the prefix im- and pavidus (coward). Impavido is the masculine form. The feminine version is impavida, and their respective plural forms are impavidi and impavide. Il principe impavido sfidò il drago per liberare …
Italian Word of the Day: Water (toilet bowl)
You may be surprised to learn that a word Italians commonly used to denote the toilet bowl is water! It was abbreviated from the dated English term water closet, which is just another name for a typical flush toilet, or more broadly, the small room containing said toilet. Be aware, however, that in Italian the …
Italian Word of the Day: Bottiglia (bottle)
The word for bottle in Italian is the similar-sounding bottiglia (feminine, plural: bottiglie). Unlike many Italian words which can be traced directly to Latin, bottiglia comes from the Spanish botilla meaning wine vessel. Drinks generally come in two types: bottiglie di plastica (plastic bottles) or bottiglie di vetro (glass bottles). When talking about small bottles …