The Italian word for diamond is diamante (masculine, plural: diamanti). Both the Italian and English words can be traced back to the Latin diamas, which in turn comes from the Greek adamans meaning ‘untameable‘ or ‘invincible‘. Natural diamonds (diamanti naturali) are extracted from the depths of the Earth whereas synthetic diamonds (diamanti sintetici) are produced …
The word for daisy in Italian is margherita (feminine, plural: margherite). It derives from the Greek margaritis but entered the language via the Latin margarita. Although many flowers (fiori) belong to the margherita family, the two that are considered the archetypal species of that name are the margherita diploide (oxeye daisy) and margheritina comune (common …
Although the word alba (feminine, plural: albe) in Italian can translate as either dawn or sunrise in English, it is technically closer in meaning to the former because it denotes the first appearance of light in the sky as night transitions to day. It comes from the Latin alba, which in turn derives from the …
Baleno (masculine) is one way of saying flash or flare in Italian. It derives from the verb balenare which means to flash (in a literal sense) or to pop into one’s head (in a figurative sense). By extension, it can be used to refer specifically to a flash of lightning, though the synonyms lampo, fulmine …
The word for fog in Italian is nebbia (feminine, plural: nebbie). If you have trouble remembering this word, I find it helps to create a mental association with the astronomical term nebula with which it shares the same Latin origin. Fog can be described according to its thickness (e.g. fitta = thick; densa = dense; …
Only a couple of days ago, we published an article about the word for lightning (fulmine) so it would be remiss of us if we didn’t talk about its partner in crime tuono (masculine, plural: tuoni) which is the word for thunder in Italian. Tuono derives from the verb tuonare (or the old literary variation …