Today’s word of the day is something extremely annoying and sometimes quite hard to get rid of: the hiccups (also spelled hiccoughs) which in Italian translates as singhiozzo (masculine, plural: singhiozzi).
It comes from the verb singhiozzare meaning to hiccup (when referring to a human being) or to go by fits and starts (when talking about a machine).
Il motore singhiozza un po’ quando accelero.
The engine sputters a bit when I accelerate.
Whereas in English we say that we have the hiccups using the plural of the noun, the Italians use the singular form (avere il singhiozzo).
Ho il singhiozzo da quasi un’ora. Che pizza!
I’ve had the hiccups for almost an hour. What a pain!
Some popular remedies for il singhiozzo include:
- bere l’acqua = drinking water
- trattenere il respiro = holding your breath
- respirare profondamente gonfiando la pancia = expanding your stomach by breathing in deeply
- farsi spaventare = getting someone to scare you
If someone is sobbing uncontrollably and can barely speak, you can say stanno piangendo con singhiozzi (they are crying with sobs/hiccups).
The expression a singhiozzo is used to describe something that is intermittent, unstable, fitful or spasmodic. This could be anything such as a person’s unreliable performance, an experience with lots of ups and downs, or an on-and-off contract or job.
Pietro lavora a singhiozzo da diverse settimane.
Pietro has been working on and off for many weeks.
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.
