Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Italian word of the day: ‘Casino’

No, we're not talking about gambling.

Published: 13 March 2019 18:12 CET
Updated: 18 January 2022 13:02 CET
Italian word of the day: 'Casino'
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

In Italy, a casino isn’t where you go to play roulette – but it might be where you end up after you’ve bet everything and lost.

First of all, let’s clear up the confusion: a casino as English speakers know it is un casinò in Italian.

Our English word is Italian in origin: it’s the diminutive form of casa (‘house’), the suffix ~ino making it ‘small house’. The term was once used to refer to a lodge – the kind you might use for hunting or fishing – in the days when people had country estates and needed to distinguish between the ‘big house’ and all the others.

Perhaps because of the kind of thing people tended to get up to in said lodges, the term grew to be extended to gambling houses and brothels.

Casino is still an old-fashioned word for a brothel today, though as we’ve seen today’s Italians add an accent on the ‘o’ when they’re talking about gambling dens. That changes the pronunciation too: casinò is said the French way, “ka-si-noh“, with a light stress on the final syllable.

Casino, on the other hand, is pronounced “ka-zee-no”, with emphasis on the middle syllable. And what it’s come to mean is ‘complete and utter mess’.

Ma guarda che casino!
Just look at this mess!

It can apply to figurative as well as literal jumble… 

Col suo intervento ha creato un casino.
His intervention created chaos.

… and also to noise.

Non fate casino!
Don’t make such a racket!

Why? Well, the explanation usually given is that brothels were noisy, chaotic places back in the day, with clients coming and going and women loudly advertising their services. Casino therefore became shorthand for something raucous and disorderly – just like the word bordello (another term for ‘brothel’), which today means ‘mess’ or ‘mayhem’ too.

Ma come fai a dormire in questo bordello?
How can you sleep in the middle of such mess?

But casino also carries the sense of ‘trouble’ or ‘bother’ – usually of your own making. It is, as Brits would say, ‘a cock-up’. 

In questo periodo ha tanti casini.
She’s got a lot of troubles at the moment.

Ho fatto un casino.
I really screwed up.

There’s one more sense you need to be aware of: in informal Italian un casino can also mean, quite simply, ‘a lot’. 

Mi piace un casino.
I like it a lot.

C’era un casino di gente.
There were loads of people.

Try not to mix up the various senses or you might find yourself in a real casino.

Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.

Member comments

  1. Why are there no bylines on your admirable articles? You credit photographers but not the writers/reporters whose work they illustrate.

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian word of the day: Metà vs mezzo

These Italian words are both used to talk about 'half' of something, so what exactly is the difference and when should you use them?

Published: 23 April 2024 10:48 CEST
Updated: 23 April 2024 11:49 CEST
Italian word of the day: Metà vs mezzo

It’s often the case in Italy that you’ll find several words that mean something very similar, and it’s not always easy to know which one is appropriate. Our new mini series looks at some of the most common word pairs, and sorts out which should be used and when.

Why do I need to know the difference between metà and mezzo?

Because you’ll need to use both of them in daily conversation if you live in Italy, but the difference in meaning isn’t always clear.

What’s the difference?

When you want to talk about ‘half’ of something in Italian, it may seem as though you have two choices.

Depending on what you’re talking about, you could reach for either metà or mezzo (or mezza, which we’ll come to later) but many language learners say they’re not always sure which one to use in certain situations.

Put simply, the difference between metà and mezzo is much the same as the difference between ‘half’ and ‘middle’ in English.

Metà: a half, as in one of two equal parts of something.

Mezzo: the middle, as in equally distant from two points.

For example:

Ha mangiato metà torta

He ate half of the cake

Facciamo a metà

Let’s split it (in half)

E’ sdraiato in mezzo alla strada

He’s lying in the middle of the street

Non penso che ti dovrebbe mettere in mezzo

I don’t think she should be putting you in the middle of this

READ ALSO: Come stai vs come va

But is anything in Italian ever really that simple?

There are some specific situations where the two words seem to be used interchangeably, or where it’s not clear why one is typically used and not the other.

Confusion arises particularly around telling the time in Italian, as you could say:

Sono le undici e mezzo

It’s half past eleven

Il mio treno arriva alle 5.40: vediamoci dieci minuti prima, alla mezza.

My train arrives at 5.40: let’s meet ten minutes before, at half past.

Why in this case aren’t we using metà for ‘half’? And why is it sometimes mezza rather than mezzo?

The English ‘half past’ doesn’t translate literally into Italian. Mezzo is used here instead, since we’re talking about the ‘middle of’ the hour, the point equally distant between two hours.

This might take some getting used to for English native speakers, but it is pretty logical.

As for why it’s mezza in the second example, this isn’t because it needs to agree with the gender of the noun in the sentence.

In fact, dictionaries tell us it’s always more correct to use mezzo regardless (although many Italians themselves find this rule confusing.)

But, in this case, as the language guardians at Italy’s Accademia della Crusca explain, mezza may (if you prefer) be used instead of mezzo when we already know the time, or at least the hour, being talked about.

So if you had earlier told someone an event would start at 8pm, but it’s now been delayed by half an hour, you could then say:

Comincerà alle otto e mezza

But if you’re inviting someone for the first time, you’d probably stick to:

Alle otto e mezzo

This can be a lot to remember when you’re in the middle of a conversation, but with practice you’ll soon get a feel for which word sounds right in which context. 

Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.

Make sure you don’t miss any of our Italian words and expressions of the day: download our new app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Italian Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button.

SHOW COMMENTS