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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian word of the day: ‘Avanzi’

All that stuff still in your fridge? Yeah, that's this.

Published: 26 December 2019 10:00 CET
Updated: 28 December 2023 11:53 CET

Italian word of the day: 'Avanzi'

Photo: DepositPhotos

Today’s word is surely one you’ll relate to at this time of year: gli avanzi are ‘leftovers’.

And because Italian Christmas dinners are too big for anyone to finish, we assume you’ve still got these your kitchen.

Stasera mangeremo gli avanzi della cena di ieri.
Tonight we’ll eat the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner.

The term comes from the verb avanzare (‘to advance’), and it refers to what’s left behind once everything else has gone.

While gli avanzi (plural noun) are the leftovers themselves, you might also hear people use the adjective form to refer to il cibo avanzato (‘leftover food’).

The good news is that, just as in many other countries, the week between Christmas and New Year in Italy is seen as an opportunity to relax, take some time off work, gather together with family and polish off all that food.

Meatballs, panettone sandwiches and fish tacos: a few of Pour Femme‘s ideas for how to recycle Christmas leftovers.

So get creative with your avanzi this week and above all, make sure you fit in a lie-down. Buon appetito!

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.

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Italian word of the day: 'Bocciare'

If you open your Italian test paper to see the word bocciato sprawled across the front in big red lettering, you’d be right in assuming it’s not good news.

Bocciare in Italian means to flunk, fail or to hold back.

Se non supero questo esame mi bocceranno.
If I don’t pass this exam they’re going to fail me.

Se continua a saltare le lezioni, verrà bocciata.
If she continues skipping classes, she’s going to fail out.

And bocciatura is the practice of holding a student who’s failed their end-of-year exams back a year.

Marco è stato bocciato mentre Alessia è stata promossa.
Marco was held back while Alessia moved on to the next grade.

Bocciato Sono Stato Bocciato Esame Compito Piangere Triste Tristezza Mr Bean GIF - Failed I Failed Sadness GIFs

Bocciare has other applications, however, outside the classroom. It can also more broadly mean to reject:

Era solo uno dei tanti candidati che sono stati bocciati.
He was just one of a large pool of candidates that were rejected.

And you’ll often see the word appear in headlines about politics, where it usually refers to vetoing a proposal or bill.

I sindacati hanno bocciato la proposta del governo.
Labour unions rejected the government’s proposal.

Il ddl è stato bocciato dalla Camera dei Deputati.
The bill was defeated in the lower house.

The verb has its origins in sport: bocciare originally meant to hit one ball with another in the popular Italian pastime of bocce, or boules.

There’s been some debate as to whether bocciare can be used in the active voice by the person who failed or was rejected, as in the English ‘I failed the exam’, or whether it’s only something that can happen to you (‘I was failed/they failed me’).

L’Accademia della Crusca, Italy’s preeminent linguistic authority, has weighed in on this and determined that it would amount to a semantic ‘absurdity’ in Italian for the victim of a failure to be the author of their own failing (to fail or reject themselves, so to speak).

So while you might hear someone use a phrase like Claudio ha bocciato l’esame in a colloquial context, it’s not technically considered good Italian – at least not for now.

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 by downloading 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.

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