If you want to say to stuff / gorge oneself in Italian, you can use the reflexive verb abbuffarsi (alternative spelling: abboffarsi).
According to Treccani, this verb likely derives from buffare meaning to huff or to puff. If you have trouble remembering it, I find it helpful to make a mental association with the term buffet!
Mi sono abbuffato di dolci e adesso mi sento male.
I stuffed myself with sweets and now I feel poorly.
From this verb, we get the derivative nouns abbuffone and abbuffata. The former is an uncommon synonym of mangione (big eater) whereas the latter is synonymous with the word mangiata (a hearty meal or good feed). Fare un’abbuffata or farsi un’abbuffata is the same as saying abbuffarsi.
Ieri sera mi sono fatto un’abbuffata di spaghetti alle vongole.
Last night I gorged on spaghetti with clams.
A possible synonym for abbuffarsi is rimpinzarsi, although it isn’t as common. Unlike abbuffarsi, which only exists in its reflexive form, rimpinzarsi also has non-reflexive equivalent (rimpinzare) meaning to overfeed or to stuff.
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.
