Today’s word of the day is clacson, which is the word for horn, or more specifically, car horn in Italian. Now, you may be thinking to yourself that clacson doesn’t look very Italian, and you’d be right. This is because it comes from the English word klaxon, a type of electromechanical horn or alerting device …
The word for library in Italian is biblioteca (feminine, plural: biblioteche). Its origin can be traced back to the ancient Greek word βιβλιοθήκη which is a combination of βιβλίον (biblion meaning book) and -θήκη (-theke meaning box or chest). Some different kinds of biblioteche include: Mia cugina lavora in biblioteca da cinque anni. My cousin …
The Italian word for a person one does not know or with whom one is not familiar is sconosciuto if you are talking about a man or sconosciuta for a woman. It is the past participle of sconoscere, a relatively uncommon verb meaning to disown or not want to recognise. The respective plurals are sconosciuti …
The original meaning of the word cucciolo (plural: cuccioli) in Italian was puppy but it has since expanded to include any type of baby animal. If you want to specify which kind of baby animal you are talking about, simply add the preposition di (of) plus the name of the animal after cucciolo. For example: …
The word squarciagola in Italian, when preceded by the preposition a (at), is the equivalent of the idiomatic English expressions at the top of one’s lungs or at the top of one’s voice. Note that there is an equivalent expression in Italian: a pieni polmoni (lit. with one’s lungs full). It is a combination of …
A raspberry or Bronx cheer – known as a pernacchia (feminine, plural: pernacchie) in Italian – is a derisive and vulgar sound, performed by blowing through pursed lips with the tongue to obtain a noise similar to that of flatulence. /per·nàc·chia/ It derives from vernacchio which in turn can be traced back to the Latin …