Accozzaglia is one of those wonderful words that, to my ears, sounds exactly like the meaning it is meant to convey. Denoting “a strange, messy and often unpleasant assortment of things or people”, there are numerous translations we can fall back on including jumble, mix, mishmash or hodgepodge (when talking about things) or rabble and mob (when talking about people).
It derives from the verb accozzare (to mix together, to throw together), which in turn comes from cozzare (to collide, to butt heads).
Being a feminine noun beginning with a vowel, it takes the following articles:
- l’accozzaglia
- le accozzaglie
- un’accozzaglia
- delle accozzaglie
Here are a few examples of how accozzaglia is used in context:
- un’accozzaglia di idee = a mix of ideas
- un’accozzaglia di cose inutili = a hodgepodge of useless things
- un’accozzaglia di gioventù = a rabble of youths
C’era un’accozzaglia di giovani davanti al locale.
There was a rabble of youngsters in front of the pub.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
