Word of the Day

We love to assaggiare (ahs-sah-djah-rai) stuff in Italy! And it couldn’t be any different when you think how much we love good food and wine, because assaggiare means “to taste” or “ to try” something to eat, especially while you – or someone else …

Intanto (een-tan-toh) is today’s word. Attested for the first time in our beautiful language in the 13th century, it is formed by two terms, the preposition in and the adverb tanto. It is very common and we like to use …

You know when you are somewhere usually quiet, perhaps sitting on a bench in your favorite corner of the park near home, and it gets all of a sudden strangely busy? Or when you start noticing more and more people …

Today’s word, scorciatoia (skohr-tchah-toh-eeah), has an easy translation, “shortcut.” It’s also quite simple to use because, contrarily to other words that have multiple meanings, scorciatoia means only that. Of course that doesn’t mean we can’t use it in different contexts! A scorciatoia can be a literal …

Divieto (dee-vee-ai-toh) means “prohibition” or “interdiction” in English. It comes from the verb divietare, which was first attested in the 14th century, and that we no longer use today, preferring the shorter version vietare. Of course, both old and “new” …

The Italian word circa (cheer-kah) is not unfamiliar to English-speaking folks: we use it with dates to indicate something happened around the time we mention. In Italian, it has the same meaning, but with a couple more nuances. Of course, the circa we like in English …

Qualora (Kooah-loh-rah) is a bit of a fancy word because we don’t use it every day. Qualora is more of a “written Italian” thing or something you’d use in the spoken language only in higher, more formal registers. But that doesn’t mean we …

Quindi (kween-dee) comes from the vulgar Latin expression eccum inde, “here from this point,” which then turned into cum inde, through a series of key linguistic mutations that change the way we pronounce words when speaking them fast. Ah, the …

It happens to everyone: you’ve just got home from work when you realize you ran out of coffee. Needless to say, you must take a quick trip to the store, lest you are unable to get out of bed in …

Fuorché (foo-ohr-kai) means “except,” “but,” “apart from” and we use it often, especially in higher registers of language. It always comes in a pair with tutto, tutti, ogni and nessuno, and it always accentuates what we are saying. For instance, oggi posso fare tutto fuorché …