Lightning, known as fulmine (masculine, plural: fulmini) in Italian, is a key element of a thunderstorm, along with thunder (tuono) and heavy rain (pioggia). Another word that translates as lightning is lampo. Whereas fulmine refers to the occurrence of a natural electrical discharge between a cloud and the ground or within a cloud (or in …
The sunflower, known as a girasole (masculine, plural: girasoli) in Italian, is a beautiful tall plant of the daisy family with very large golden-rayed flowers. The Italian name is a combination of the verb girare (to turn, spin) and sole (sun). The name refers to the heliotropic behaviour of the flower (it turns throughout the …
The Italian word for smoke is fumo (masculine, plural: fumi). If you have trouble remembering this word, I’ve found that it helps to think of the English term fume which shares the same origin. Related to fumo is the verb fumare which means to smoke in both the transitive and intransitive sense of the word. …
The word for sunset in Italian is tramonto (masculine, plural: tramonti). Derived from the verb tramontare (to set, fade, wane), it is a combination of the word monte (mount) and the prefix tra-. The latter normally means between, but in this case, the definition is closer to beyond. Together they form ‘to go beyond the …
In Italian, the word tempesta (feminine, plural: tempeste) refers to any violent storm and may be characterised by strong winds (venti forti), thunder and lightning (tuoni e fulmini), heavy rainfall (forte pioggia), ice (ghiaccio), or winds carrying sand (sabbia), snow (neve) or hail (grandine). There are numerous names and varieties of tempeste in the Italian …
The Italian word for nature is the similar sounding natura (feminine, plural: nature). It corresponds to the English meaning of the word in every sense as we’ll discover below. The first translation is the physical world that surrounds us including plants (piante), animals (animali), the landscape (paesaggio) and any other features or products of the …