Beautiful Words in Italian

Hello and welcome to our entry on beautiful Italian words!

It seems that Italian is already one of our favourite languages to listen to – widely considered to be one of the most passionate and romantic languages, many people enjoy Italian media and culture because of the language and all of the old-world associations that go along with it. With these summery, love-filled connotations and delicately elaborate pronunciations, it’s easy to find beauty in this old and expressive language.

Along with French and Spanish, Italian is a Romance language (derived from Latin). Out of all of the Romance languages, it’s the closest and most similar to Latin. It is the 23rd most widely spoken language, with an estimate of 59 million native speakers worldwide. Italian is considered a major European language and is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Helping along its romantic reputation is the unofficial title of the language of music due to its use in musical notation and terminology. It also has a wide influence in the arts and luxury goods market, which is reflective of the Italian artists active during the Renaissance. Now that we know a bit about the history and geography of the Italian language, let’s have a look at the technicalities. Italian uses a seven-vowel system and 23 consonants. Accents and stresses are important in Italian, with acute and grave accents being used. Like Spanish and French, it’s a gendered language, with two assignments (masculine and feminine) being used. Masculine nouns end in -o for singular and -i for plural, while feminine nouns end in -a for singular and -e for plural. Inanimate objects are assigned fixed arbitrary genders.

Since Italian shares similar sounds, letters, and loanwords with English, it’s an accessible language for native English speakers to start learning. As Italian also has many lexical similarities with other Romance languages, an understanding of Italian will help greatly in understanding languages like French, Spanish, or Portuguese.

List of Beautiful Words in Italian

  • mozzafiato (adj.) breathtaking; from the words “mozzare” (to cut or chop off) and “fiato” (breath).
  • magari (n.) maybe. used as an expression of hope or a wish, rather than a display of uncertainty.
  • rubacuori (adj.) heartthrob.
  • piccolo (adj.) small
  • tesoro (n.) treasure
  • triste (n.) sad
  • crepuscolo (n.) twilight.
  • cucciolo (n.) puppy. also used as a term of endearment.
  • figurati (v.) while this means “imagine”, it’s used more like “you’re welcome”, or “my pleasure”.
  • rocambolesco (adj.) excellent, incredible
  • abbracci (n.) hugs
  • azzurro (n.) blue
  • baciami (v.) kiss me
  • dietrologia (n.) a belief in hidden dimensions or realities.
  • trasecolare (v.) to be completely taken aback; dumbfounded.
  • stellato (adj.) starry.
  • sfizio (n.) whim
  • gibigianna (n.) the reflected glint of light on water.
  • allora (n.) and so; well then
  • innafiare (v.) to water something; like a plant, garden or flower.
  • ansare (v.) to barely breathe
  • nottivago (n.) a person who wanders and roams at nighttime.
  • dormiveglia (n.) the time and state between sleeping and waking.
  • mudita (n.) to derive happiness from the delight and good fortune of others.
  • commuovere (v.) to affect emotionally, stir, move to tears
  • aventurier (n.) adventurer.
  • sbaciucchiarsi (v.) to smother someone with kisses
  • ridere (v.) laugh
  • téméraire (adj.) reckless
  • meriggiare (n.) to take an afternoon nap in the shade.
  • struggimento (n.) suffering borne of sadness and yearning
  • evviva! (n.) hurray!
  • solamente (adj.) only
  • nocciola (n.) hazelnut
  • benissimo (adv.) very well
  • boh (adv.) I don’t know
If you’d like to learn more about Italian (or even learn the language itself), Rocket Languages, Babbel, and Duolingo are all great online resources. If you’d like to see more Italian words but not necessarily study the language, then Quora, BBC and Pinterest all have great word collections for you to peruse. Don’t forget that there’s more than one way to experience beautiful Italian words – once you’ve got your reading resources covered, there are also podcasts (like Italian 101) and YouTube channels for you to follow (Italian 101 has a great channel for learning Italian words too).

These beautiful Italian words were picked from many different sites, some language-based and some not. The language-based sites include BBC, FluentU, Rocket Languages, Babbel and Duolingo. The non language-based sites I sifted through were more focused on collections and lists of words and include Pinterest, Quora, and Tumblr. If you’ve found a great resource for Italian words that you think we should know, please let us know. While I do look at books, websites and news articles for inspiration on these beautiful words in Italian, I am always careful to compose and write the meanings myself, so if you see anything out there in the wild wide internet that looks eerily similar, it was entirely unintentional. Please do let us know so that we can fix it up and not be accidentally stealing things.

In addition to that, if you see a word or a meaning that needs editing, updating, or removing, please leave a comment or let me know and I’ll get started on making those changes as soon as I can.

If this list wasn’t helpful or there are other types of Italian words you’d like to see or learn about, get in touch! If you’d like to see lists of words in other languages not already featured on this site, we’d like to know about that too. Our collections are growing and we’d like to do it in a way that accommodates you.

Until next time – happy internet travels, be safe, and keep learning!