Sopracciglio is a masculine noun that means eyebrow. Modelled on the Latin supercilium, it is the combination of ciglio (eyelash) and sopra (meaning ‘above‘).
Before we begin, it’s important to clarify that this word has two possible plurals: the feminine plural le sopracciglia, which indicates a single pair of eyebrows, and the masculine plural i sopraccigli, which indicates more than one eyebrow considered individually. For example:
Le sopracciglia di Anna sono molto scure e definite.
Anna’s eyebrows are very dark and defined.
In this first example, we are referring to the pair of eyebrows that belong to Anna, whereas in the second example, we are talking about multiple eyebrows that belong to different boys.
I tre ragazzi hanno tutti e tre un piercing ai sopraccigli destri.
The three boys all have a piercing on their right eyebrows.
Because we normally talks about eyebrows as a pair, the plural sopracciglia is used much more than sopraccigli.
But what is the reason for the two plural forms? Well, some masculine nouns ending in -o are feminine in the plural and have the ending -a because they mirror the Latin neuter plural from which they derive. For instance, sopracciglio comes from the Latin supercilium whose plural is, in fact, supercilia. A handful of these nouns retained the feminine plural ending -a in the passage from Latin to Italian, as well as acquiring the normal masculine plural ending -i. (Source: Lo SciacquaLingua)
Important: The plural le sopracciglie does not exist, although you may hear some Italians use it erroneously.
In summary, here are all the forms of this word accompanied by their definite and indefinite articles:
- il sopracciglio = the eyebrow
- un sopracciglio = an eyebrow
- i sopraccigli = the eyebrows
- le sopracciglia = the pair of eyebrows
- dei sopraccigli = (some) eyebrows
- delle sopracciglia = (some) pairs of eyebrows
Here are a few verbs that often appear in the company of sopracciglio:
- aggrottare le sopracciglia = to knit one’s eyebrows
- inarcare / alzare le sopracciglia = to raise one’s eyebrows
- depilarsi le sopracciglia = to pluck one’s eyebrows
- pettinarsi le sopracciglia = to tidy one’s eyebrows
- sistemare le sopracciglia = the fix one’s eyebrows
- fare la ceretta alle sopracciglia = to wax one’s eyebrows
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.
