The adverb carponi (also written as a carponi or the less common carpone) is how you would say on all fours or on one’s hands and knees in Italian. It is probably connected with the Latin carpere which means to swipe or to pilfer.
Some common verbs you’ll see used with carponi include:
- camminare carponi = to walk on all fours, to crawl
- avanzare carponi = to crawl on all fours
- strisciare carponi = to crawl on all fours
- stare / essere carponi = to be on all fours
- mettersi carponi = to get down on all fours
Per nascondersi dai paparazzi, l’attore ha camminato carponi fra le automobili.
To hide from the paparazzi, the actor crawled on all fours amongst the cars.
To emphasise the prolonged duration or discomfort of being on all fours, there also exists the doubled (and somewhat antiquated) version carpon carponi.
A synonym for carponi is gattoni which comes from the verb gattonare (to crawl). You’ll also encounter the expression a quattro zampe (lit: on four paws), especially for animals.
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.
