Have you ever found yourself in the company of someone holding forth for many minutes at a time, wondering how you ended up in this situation and when you can make your exit?

Then you’ve experienced a pippone (pronunciation available here): a relentless and self-indulgent monologue from which listeners can’t easily escape.

The giver may be lecturing you on something you’ve done, or just sounding off on a favourite subject. If they regularly try to corner you for this purpose, they might be an attaccabottoni.

The word originates from Roman dialect but is used and understood throughout Italy.

Preparatevi ad un bel pippone.
Get ready to be buttonholed.

Ce la fate a risparmiarmi il pippone sul non bere e fumare?
Could you spare me the lecture about not drinking and smoking?

A word of warning: you’ll want to be careful about exactly how you deploy the term, as it comes from the word pippa, i.e. the act of male masturbation.

Adding ‘-one’ (OH-neh) on to the end of a noun makes it a bigger version of itself (see nasone), so you can get a pretty good idea of the broader connotations of pippone.

The Italian language site Italiano Semplice points out that if you want to talk about someone launching into a speech, you should use the phrase attaccare un pippone rather than iniziare un pippone.

That’s because while the former clearly refers to someone giving a speech, the latter could be mistaken for something more vulgar.

Mi ha attaccato un pippone allucinante.
He gave me such a horrendous lecture.

So che ti sto attaccando un pippone, ma ti volevo dare quante più informazioni possibili.
I know I’m giving you a bit of a speech, but I wanted to provide as much information as possible.

Note that this is the formulation you’ll to use when talking about delivering a pippone; the verb pippare refers neither to speechifying nor self-pleasure, but the act of snorting drugs like cocaine.

That’s enough of a pippone for one day.

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