Acid reflux (reflusso gastrico) is where stomach acid travels up to your throat from your stomach. It can cause a burning sensation in your chest which is colloquially known as bruciore di stomaco (heartburn) in Italian. The literal translation is burning of the stomach. It is a masculine noun and the plural is bruciori.
Below are a few verbs that tend to accompany this term:
- avere il bruciore di stomaco = to have heartburn
- soffrire di bruciore di stomaco = to suffer from heartburn
- curare il bruciore di stomaco = to cure heartburn
- trattare il bruciore di stomaco = to treat heartburn
Another possible way of saying heartburn is acidità di stomaco, which translates as acidity of the stomach, or simply acidità. The scientific term is pirosi (pyrosis).
Più di un italiano su dieci soffre di bruciore di stomaco.
More than one in ten Italians suffer from heartburn.
The word bruciore can be used informally to talk about other types of ailments such as:
- bruciore alla gola = sore throat
- bruciore di una puntura = stinging of an insect bite
- bruciore di una scottatura = stinging of a burn
It may also be used figuratively to describe a sense of shame or humiliation due to a defeat or an embarrassing situation.
- il bruciore di un rimprovero = the sting of reproach
- il bruciore della sconfitta = the bitterness of defeat
- il bruciore della vergogna = the burn of shame
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.
