Have you come down with a cold (raffreddore)? Or perhaps you suffer from allergies (allergie)? If so, you might find yourself sneezing more than usual!
The word for a sneeze in Italian is starnuto, which comes from the verb starnutire meaning to sneeze.
starnuto
sneeze
Note: less common variations are found in Italian literature, such as the noun sternuto, and the verbs starnutare and sternutire.
Starnuto is a masculine noun that takes the following definite and indefinite articles:
- lo starnuto = the sneeze
- uno starnuto = a sneeze
- gli starnuti = the sneezes
- degli starnuti = some sneezes
An alternative way of saying to sneeze is fare uno starnuto (lit: to do/make a sneeze).
Perché hai fatto uno starnuto? Ti è entrata della polvere nel naso?
Why did you sneeze? Because some dust went up your nose?
There are onomatopoetic words in both languages for the sound a sneeze makes: achoo in English and etcì / ecci in Italian.
Whereas in English, we say Bless you! after a person has just sneezed, the Italians say Salute! which literally means Health!
Etcì! – Salute! Ti sei preso un raffreddore?
Achoo! – Bless you! Have you caught a cold?
A fun (but not very common) expression in Italian is È come fare uno starnuto (It’s like sneezing). It is used to describe something you were expecting to be long and tedious but turned out to be extremely straightforward and easy.
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.
