American Italian: Dictionary
aduzipach!/aduzipazz! – you’re crazy! (ma tu sei pazzo!) [aa-DOO-zee-PAACH]/[aa-DOO-zee-PAATS]
afanabola!/vafanabola!/a fa napule! – go to hell! (a fa Napoli!) [aa-faa-NAA-boe-laa]
agita – heartburn/indigestion (aciditá) [AA-jih-tuh]
ammonini! – let’s go! (andiamo!) [aa-moe-NEE-nee]
andosh!/andosc’ – let’s go! (andiamo) [aan-DOESH]
aunda/awunda? – where? (awundi?) [aa-WOON-duh]
aunda ciunca/awunda chunka? – where does it hurt? (awundi ciunca?) [aa-WOON-duh CHOON-kuh?]
assai – a lot (molto) [aah-SYE]
bacous’/bacouz – bathroom (backhouse) [buh-KOWZ]
basanagol/basanicol’ – basil (basilico) [baa-zaa-naa-GOAL]
bash/basc’ – down/downstairs (bascia) [baash]
bada bing! – bam!; Note: Popularized in the 1970s by The Godfather character Santino Corleone
biangolin’ – bleach (bianco lino) [byaan-GO-leen]
bicciuridu – my little boy/my little baby (piccolo bambino) [BEECH-oo-REE-doo]
bisgott’ – cookie (biscotti) [beesh-GAWT]
boombots – nickname for an idiot (u’ pazzo); Note: As in “Vinnie Boombots” [boom-BAATS]
boxugeddu – box (box per oggetti) [baax-oo-JED-oo]
braggiol’ – meat and sauce/male anatomy (bracciole) [BRAAJH-oel]
brosciutt’/prosciutt’ – italian ham (prosciutto) [BRAAJH-oot]/[PRAAJH-oot]
buttagots/butta’ gazz’ – annoying idiot (buttana u’ cazzo) [boo-taa-GAATS]
buttann’/puttann’ – b_tch/whore (putanna); Note: more mild than “sciaquadell” [boo-TAAN]
calabres’ – Calabrian (calabrese); Note: can refer to people, objects, customs, etc. [caal-uh-BRAYZ]
calamad – fried squid (calamari) [caal-uh-MAAD]
capidan/capitan’ – captain (capitano/capitan) [caap-ee-DAAN]
cazzo – balls (cazzo) [KAA-tso]
cendann’/cent’ ann’ – a hundred years (cento anni); Note: said before a toast [chen-DAAN]
che cozz’? – what the f— are you doing? (che cazzo fai?) [KAY-kaatz]
chefai? – what are you doing? (che cosa fai?) [ke-FYE]
chepreca! – what a shame! (che peccato!) [kay-preh-KAA]
chiove – raining (fa piove) [KYOH-vay]
chiove tropp’assai – it’s raining very hard (fa piove molto) [KYOH-vay-TROAP-aa-SAI]
chooch – jackass (ciuccio) [CHOOCH]
chunka – injured (ciuncare) [CHOON-kuh]
cing-u-bezz/cing’ u’ bezz’ – five dollars apiece (cinque un pezzo) [cheeng-oo-BETZ]
ciuri – flowers (fiori) [CHOO-ree]
colghioni/cogliones/gulgliones – male anatomy (colghioni) [coal-YOANZ]/[gool-YOANZ]
cornuto – husband whose wife is unfaithful (cornuto) [coar-NOO-toe]
cuore stuppau – heart stopped (cuore stopped) [KWOAW-ray-staa-POW]
ddojefacc/duyavatch – two faced (due facce) [doo-ya-FAATCH]
disgraziat’ – dirtball (disgraziato) [dees-graats-ee-AAT]
dzapp’ – gardening hoe (zappa) [DZAAP]
edi-conosc’? – do you know me?/do you know who I am? (e mi conosci?) [EE-dee-GAA-noesh]
facciabrutt’ – ugly face (faccia brutta) [FA-chuh-broot]
faccia di katzo – ball face (faccia di cazzo) [FAA-chaa-dee-KAA-tsoe]
facciadu/faccia du’ – two faced (facce due) [faatch-aa-DOO]
facciu fridda – it’s cold (fa freddo) [FAA-choo-FREE-daa]
fugeddaboudit – forget about it (forget about it)
fanabola!/vanabola! – shit! (a fa Napoli) [faa-NAA-boe-laa]
fatti gatti due!/vatoli vatoli due! – mind your own f—ing business! (fa ti cazzi tuoi) [FAA-tee-GAA-tee-doo-yay]
fattu napiridu – I farted [FAA-too-naa-pee-REE-doo] (ho fatto napiridu)
‘ffangul’! – go f— yourself! (vai a fare in culo) – [faan-GOOL]
fraggiol’ – beans (fraggiole) [FRAA-joal]
fratu – brother (fratello) [FRAA-too]
frittat’/fritad – fried egg dish (frittata) [frə-TAAD]
fugazi – fake (falso OR fake)
fuidi dogu! – get down from there! [FWEE-dee-DOW-goo]
gab’ – head (capo) [GAAB]
gabbadost’/gab’ a’ tost’ – hardhead (capa dura/capa tosta)
gabbagul/gabbagool – type of meat/food/idiot/fool (capicola/capocollo/capacolla) [gaa-baa-GOOL]
gabbaruss’/gab’ a’ russ’ – redhead (capo rosso) [gaa-baa-ROOS]
gabbadeegats/capa di cazz’ – ball face (capo di cazzo) [gaa-baa-dee-GATS]
gabish?/capish?/gabisc’? – (do you) understand? (capisci?) [gaa-PEESH]
gaguzz’ – muscles/idiot/money/squash (cucuzza) [gaa-GOOTS]
gaguzzalonga – big muscles (cucuzza lunga) [ga-GOOTS-aa-LOWN-gaa]
gambarell’/gambanell’ – (door)bell (campanello) [GAMBA-rell]
gandin’ – basement (cantina) [gaan-DEEN]
ganol’ – cannoli [gaa-NOAWL]
gavadeel’ – italian pasta (cavatelli) [gaa-vaa-DEEL]
gavone – gluttonous eater (cafone) [gaa-VOAN]
gettuzang/gett’ u’ sang’ – work hard/bleed (gettare il sangue) [get-oo-ZAANG]
ghiacchieron’ – blabbermouth (chiacchierone) [gyaa-kyaa-ROAN]
ghistu/chistu – this (questo) [GEE-stoo]
giambott’ – Italian stew (giambotta) [jaam-BAUWT]
giamoke/giamocc’/jamoke – idiot (giamope) [jaam-OAK]
gibude – onion (cipolla) [jaa-BOOD]
gomesegiam’?/comesegiam’?/gome se chiam’ – how do you say?/whatchamacallit? (come si chiama?) [go-maa-say-GYAM]
goopalin’ – snow hat (goobalini) [goo-paa-LEEN]
goombah – countryman/fellow comrade/godfather (compare) [goom-BAA]
gopp’ – up/top (coppa/capo) [gaap]
guacarunno – someone (qualcuno) [gwaa-kaa-ROO-no]
gul’/cul’ – ass (culo) [GOOL]
gumad – mistress/girlfriend (cumare/comare) [goo-MAAD]
guppin’ – ladle (coppino) [goo-PEEN]
guyasabbu? – who knows? (chissa?) [goo-yaa-ZAA-boo]
gidrul’ – stupid person (cetriolo) [jih-DROOL]
haicapid – do you understand? (hai capito) [eye-kaa-PEED]
how ya doin’? – how’s it going? (how are you doing?)
‘iamo – let’s go! (andiamo) [YAA-moe]
idu – he (lui) [EE-doo]
i-malano-miau! – I can’t believe it! (che malanova mi hai) [EE-maa-laa-no-mee-auw]
issu – she (lei) [EE-soo]
lascialui! – leave him alone! (lascilo!) [laa-shaa-LOO-ee]
lasordida!/asodida! – your sister!/your sister’s a _____! (la sorella!/tua sorella (è una putana)!) [laa-SA-dih-daa]
la vesa gazi – swear word [laa-VAY-zaa-gaa-ZEE]
ma che cozz’u fai?! – what the heck are you doing?! (ma che cozzo fai?!) [maa-KAY-kauwtz-oo-fai]
ma che bell’! – why, how beautiful! (ma che bella) [maa-KAY-bell]
ma che quest’? – what is this? (ma che cosa è questo?) [maa-KAY-quest]
maddiul’/mariul’ – fool/rascal (mariolo) [maa-dee-OOL]
maliocch’ – the evil eye (malocchio) [maal-YOAK]
mamaluke – idiot/fool (mamalucco) [maa-maa-LOUK]
mannaggia – damn/cursing (male ne aggia/male ne abbia) [MAA-NAA-juh]
mannaggia dial – curse the devil (male ne aggia il diavolo) [MAA-NAA-juh-dee-owl]
mannaggia la mort’ – cursing death (male ne aggia la morta) [MAA-NAA-juh-dee-owl]
mannaggia la miseria – cursing misery (male ne aggia la miseria) [MAA-NAA-juh-MEE-seh-ree-uh]
manigott’ – italian pasta (manicotti) [maa-NEE-gauwt]
mapeen/mopeen/mappin’ – napkin/towel (moppina) [maa-PEEN]
maranad – marinara sauce (marinara) [maa-raa-NAAD]
maron’! – damnit (madonna) [maa-ROAN]
maronna mia! – oh my God! (madonna mia!) [maa-ROAWN-aa-MEE-uh]
menzamenz – half and half (mezza mezza) [mehnz-AA-mehnz]
mezzamort’ – half-dead (mezzo morto) [METZA-moart]
minch’ – wow! (minchia) [meenk]
mortadell’ – Italian sausage/loser (mortadella) [moart-aa-DELL]
mortadafam’ – really hungy/starving (morta da fame) [moart-aa-daa-faam]
muccatori – tissue (fazzoletto) [moo-kaa-TOE-ree]
mudanz – pajamas [moo-DAANZ]
murudda – without a brain [moo-ROO-daa]
musciad – mushy (musciata/ammosciato) [moo-SHYAAD]
moosh-miauw – very mushy (musciata miau) [moosh-meow]
muzzarell’/muzzadell’ – Italian cheese (mozzarella) [mootz-aa-DELL]
medigan’ – non-Italian american/Italian who has lost his roots (americano) [meh-dee-GAAN]
napoleedan/napuletan’ – Neapolitan (napolitano) [naa-paa-lee-DAAN]
numu fai shcumbari! – don’t embarass me!/stop embarrasing me! (non fai scumbari) [NOO-moo fai shkoom-baa-REE]
oobatz’/patz’ – crazy person (un pazzo/u’ pazzu) [oo-BAATZ]
paesan’ – fellow Italian countryman (paesano) [pai-ZAAN]
panzagin’! – I’m full! [paan-zaa-GEEN]
pasta vasul’ – Italian soup (pasta fagioli) [pasta-faa-ZOOL]
pastin’ – small, star-shaped pasta (pastina) [paa-STEEN]
pizzagain’ – Italian meat pie (pizzagaina) [pizza-GAIN]
pizzolino – afternoon nap (pisolino) [peetz-o-LEE-no]
provalon’ – type of cheese (provalone) [pro-və-LOAN]
pucchiach’/bucchiach’ – b–ch (pucchiacha) [poo-KYAAK]
rigott’ – Italian cheese (ricotta) [ree-GAUWT]
salud’/salut’ – be in good health (salute) [zaa-LOOD]
shape-la-tass’ – shape of a cup (shape of la tazza) [shape-aa-laa-taatz]
scharol’/scarol – escarole/money (scarola) [shkaa-ROAL]
schif’/shkeeve – to be disgusted by something (schifo) [shkeef]
schifozz’ – disgusting thing (schifosa) [shkee-VOATZ]
scorchamend’/scocciament’ – a pain in the ass (scocciamento) [scorch-aa-MEND]
scooch – pest/move over [SKOOCH]
scoochi-di-bandanz – a real pain [scooch-ee-dee-baan-DANZ]
scustumad’ – stupid person (scostumato) [skoo-stoo-MAAD]
sciumara – river (fiumara) [shoo-MAA-raa]
scoba – broom (scopa) [SKO-baa]
scobendo – to sweep the floor (scopare) [sko-BEN-doe]
scubata/scupata – get laid (scopato) [SKOO-baa-taa]
sculabast’ – pasta strainer (scola la pasta) [skoo-laa-BAAST]
scungill’/scongigl’ – cooked snail (sconciglio) [skoon-JEEL]
sedeti/sededi – sit down (sedeteti) [SEH-daa-dee]
sesenta fame? – do you feel hungry?/are you hungry? (sei senti fame?) [seh-SEHN-taa-FAA-may]
sfacimm’ – bad person (sfacimma) [SVAH-CHEEM] [svaa-CHEEM]
sfogliadell’ – italian pastry (sfogliatella) [SHVOHL-ya-dell]
sciaquadell’ – whore (sciacquata) [shock-wa-DELL]
scumbari – disheveled (scumbari) [shkoom-baa-REE]
sigilian’ – Sicilian (siciliano) [sih-jeel-YAAN]
sorda – money (soldi) [SOAL-dee]
sorda – sister (sorella) [SOAR-duh]
spasciad’/scasciad’ – not talking (to someone) (spacciato/spasciau) [spaa-SHAAD]
spustad/spostat’ – spaced out (spostato) [spoo-STAAD]
strunz’ – sh_t (stronzo) [STROONZ]
stanna mabaych – son of a b—- (mispronounced “son of a b—-“) [STAA-naa-maam-BAYCH]
statagitt’!/stagitt’!/staizitt’!/staizii! –be quiet! (stai zitto) [stah-tuh-JEET]
stendinz – intestines/guts (inglese: intestines) [stehn-DEENZ]
stugots/stugats – f___ it (questo cazzo/questu cazzu/’stu cazzu) [stoo-GAATS]
stunad – moron (stonato) [stoo-NAAD]
struppiau – extremely dimwitted (stupido) [stroo-pee-YAOW]
stuppiau – very dimwitted (stupido) [stoo-pee-YAOW]
stuppiad – dimwitted (stupido) [stoo-PEE-yaad]
stuppau – stopped [stoo-PAOW]
suprasa/suprasad – type of salami (soppressata) [soo-praa-SAAD]
suscia – blow (soffia) [SOOSH-yaa]
te fugo! – f— you! [tay-FOO-go]
ti voglio ben’assai – I love you so much (ti voglio bene) [tee-VOAL-yo-TROAP-aa-SAI]
un ada oda – another time (un altra volta/un altra ora) [oon-AA-daa-O-daa]
ue, goombah! – hey, man! (ue, compare!) [way-goom-BAH]
ufratu – your brother (il fratello/tuo fratello) [oo-FRAA-too]
umbriag’/umbriacc’/umbriago – intoxicated (ubriaco) [oom-bree-YAAG]
usorda – your sister (la sorella/tua sorella) [oo-SOAR-daa]
vaffangul’!/baffangul’!/ – f— you! (vai a fare in culo) [VAA-faan-GOOL]
vagaboom/vagabuma – vagabond (vagabonda) [vaa-gaa-BOOM]
vangopp’ – go up/go upstairs (fa in coppa) [vaan-GOAP]
veni ca/vieni qua – come (over) here (vieni qui) [veh-nee-KAA]
vedi caciunca/vidi cachunka! – watch out, you’re gonna get hurt! (vedi la ciunca?) [vee-dee-kaa-CHOON-kaa]
walyun/wayo/guaglion’/guaglio’ – young man (guaglione) [waal-YOON]
‘uarda/warda – look! (guarda!) [WAAR-daa]
‘uarda la ciunca! – watch out, you’re gonna get hurt! (guarda la ciunca!) (WAAR-daa-laa-CHOON-kaa]
zoot/zutt’ – down/downstairs (sotto) [zoot]
zutt’ u’ basciament’ – down to the basement (sotto u’ basement) [zoot-oo-baa-shaa-MENT]
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American Italian is an Italian-American pidgin language developed in the early 20th century by Italian immigrants settling in American cities and metropolitan areas, especially in New York and New Jersey. It is based on the Italian language, but it contains a mixture of Sicilian- and Neapolitan-inspired dialect words and phrases as well as English words. The language was prominent in United States cities on the East Coast, such as Newark, Paterson, New York City (especially Manhattan and Brooklyn), the cities of Long Island, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston, but I am finding that it was spoken very similarly in the other regions of the US as well as pockets of Canada. It was developed and spoken in tightly-knit Italian communities and neighborhoods.
Linguistically, a language is a complete form of communication, but American Italian is actually an incomplete language (a pidgin language) that needs to be supplemented with Italian (or English or both) in order to function. Many Gabbagool words are taken from Italian dialects, and different Italians in different areas spoke their dialects differently. Without a repository for these words, they will likely be lost, as pidgin languages are difficult to sustain. See the following definitions:
Language: a complete, independent form of verbal communication (example: modern Italian or American English)
Dialect: a complete language derived from another complete language (example: Sicilian)
Pidgin: an incomplete, secondary language formed impromptu by people in an area who do not speak the main language (example: Gabbagool)
The spellings in this dictionary are somewhat arbitrary because these words do not truly belong to English or Italian; they are hybrid creations. I try to always utilize the Tuscan Italian (the official dialect on which the modern Italian language is based) as a guide to spelling, using commas for dropped vowels. If a word has an English origin, I will reflect its English spelling. If a word has unknown origins or a pronunciation that is difficult to spell in the Italian language, I will spell it phonetically using English as a guide.
This is the official dictionary and hub of American Italian (containing the approximate spellings, meanings, etymology, and pronunciations), so it is not lost forever. Much of this comes from memory and familial recollection. Putting this together in one succinct place was very fun, and I hope it is helpful. This dictionary will be updated, as it is an ongoing process.
In this dictionary, you will find tons of American Italian words and their Italian linguistic origins. This will be the official hub of everything related to American Italian. Please feel free to add to our ongoing comments section to share your words and stories! They will always be saved in the comments section, which itself is a living document of the culture.
American Italian 
nice job on maing this web site. i totally agree with you that they should bring some of the old shows back. the new shows that are on today do not compare to the old shows….not even close. also i like the italian words there really cool. al of them are correct and all italian families talk like that. im trying to memorize some of the italian slang words on your list. once again nice job. your a true italian!
I remember these words from while growing up (Italian neighborhood in Jersey). Thank you for reminding me.
This was great. I was sitting here with my 16 year old looking up some of the words that I could remember my italian grandmother saying through the years. I was so excited to see scola la pasta on here. We were discussing this word this morning while cooking pasta.
I use scola a pasta all the time.
I am 2nd generation Italian born in America.
Now my grandchildren use this work instead of colandar.
I am just reading this now and it is brining back lots of memoires of my grandparents. When they used to watch me when i was little, i didn’t alwyas understnad them. One time grandma Jennie wanted the scolapasta and i didnt know what she wanted..She said you know “macaroni stop, water go!”.
My mom, first gen American, said she was married before she knew the English word for colander. Fun to see scola pasta here.
Hahaha, my grandma lived for a long time in the west new york/north bergen area in NJ, and says “oh maron” all the time. Best part … we’re not Italian at all!
you mean “madonna”.. mother of god, is what that
saying is used to mean, pronounced
(mah-down, with “down” like “own”).
no, she meant maron’! – damnit (madonna) [maa-ROAN] it’s up in the list. we said it too.
No such word as MARON. It is MADONNA. Meaning, Mother Mary. ” Oh, MaDonna! It does NOT mean Dammit.
Yes but in the Southern dialects it’s pronounced marrona. And it can be used as dammit as well “marrona, ma che buo?!”
“Not Italian at all”. Thanks for that. It made my day, as did this list! So many memories!
“Madone” is probably the most commonly repeated Italian phrase by Americans, but even many Italian-Americans who say it have no idea of its meaning, so let me tell you, and you and many others who say it will be surprised. Madone is an abbreviated form of the Italian word MADONNA! Mary, the Biblical Mother of Jesus, called the “Madonna.” Whenever any says Madone, they are invoking the name of Jesus’ mother. Italians have a habit of dropping the final vowel of a word, as in Mootzarell for mozzerellA, and Antipast for antipastO. Hope this clears this up for you. – Anthony in New Jersey
Please state clearly that this is the language spoken by Italian immigrants, not Italian. Most of these terms wouldn’t be understood in Italy, but I suppose only in Brooklin (or Broccolino as they said) 😀
Ciao da Roma
Just a couple hours ago my Irish nephew called me from upstate New York to ask “Uncle Joe, how do you spell ‘Gomba’?” We both turned on the computers and found HERE that the correct spelling is GOOMBA. Thank you for all the fractured Italian words. A great read!
And understood in Newark NJ
and in Chicago 🙂
🙂
Downneck!!
No if you going to parts of southern Italy, 90% of the wording would be still be understood by the older generation.
It would not be understood by the new generation(schooling) which teach the Fiorentine dialect or offical Italian
Sometimes known as “Book Italian.”
Most of this is Napolitano or Siciliano dialect, and would most certainly be understood in the south.
Oh, thank you for this! All my life my grandmother would shake her wooden spoon at me and call me scooch or scocciamente and I never knew how to spell them.
I grew up in South Philly and was 1st generation American. My mom, dad, and friends rarely spoke proper Italian, but spoke a combination of slang, dialect, corrupted Italian words, and made up words with Italian origins.
One word was “baccahous” which meant bathroom or toilet. I was told many early Italian immigrants worked as laborers for contractors. Very few people at the time had indoor plumbing and homes had outhouses in the back. (They used pee pots inside for when it was too cold at night in the winter to go outside). When they asked to use the toilet facilities, they were told it was in the “back of the house.” This phrase was Italianized and became the word, “baccahous”.
If you remember there was a song by Lou Monte, Pepino the Mouse. The entire song is made up of corrupted Italian words. In it he uses baniarol (banyarol) and scaciata (scashata), which mean bathtub and smash or squish. Don’t ask me where those words came from, but we used them all the time.
There was another group of words that were interchangeable. They were “a facia tu/te, a fesse tu/te, or a fessa/facia da sorida.” (Facia was pronounced facchia). These meant your face or your sister’s face. These were used primarily amongst friends to insult each other. So, let’s say someone cut loose a really gross fart. They would say to their friend, a faccia tu, or a fessa da sorida, which meant your face or your sister’s face. Your faces were compared to a fart.
Sometimes an adult would use it as a mild oath. One time my mom dropped a big bowl of spaghetti all over the floor and she cursed, a fessa da sorida. She cursed the spaghetti’s “sister’s face”.
Sometimes when we wanted to go tell someone to go fuck himself, we wouldn’t just say vafagul. We would say the proper Italian, “va fa culo.” Except it was pronounced very articulately as if given a few exclamation points at the end. The va, fa, and culo were drawn out with the “cu” in culo given an extra emphasis. It would come out, vaa faa cuuulo!!!
There are more words, but I hope these bring back memories.
Hey, this totally sounds like my relatives in Canada, who are italian immigrants!
Only i have to say that “a fess e soreta” doesn’t mean “in your sister’s face”… it is a bit more offensive (it means “your sister’s vagina” to say it politely!)
I’m telling you because if you ever come to Italy and say that, it is really really unpolite 🙂
Also, to the writer of the post, “cornuto” is not the unfaithful husband but the husband whose wife is unfaithful 🙂
actually fessa means fool. so when they say “a fess e soreta” they are saying to the fool that is your sister… which is still cold. did anyone ever hear “alle murte tue”? where i guess they curse the dead?
I forgot to mention fesse meant fool, also. It was like the word cafone.
Hey a great fun to read. I’m Polish and I’m writing my thesis on family values and culture of Italian-Americans based on The Sopranos, and this mini-dictionary happened to be really interesting, so thanks a lot for Your effort.
Very nice job! Funny thing: I am from Pittsburgh, PA and understood and remember the vast majority of these words and phrases being used (though some of the consonant sounds are a bit harder i.e. gavone to cavone, statagitt’ to statazitt’, etc.) I am twenty-four and I, myself, remember using the word baccaus’ for “bathroom” in school. Of course, none of my ‘medigan teachers knew what I was saying! Another popular phrase that I grew up with was to say when seeing someone, “Wai-i-o?” (Literally pronounce, Y-E-O). I was told it was a standard Italian greeting; my aunt went so far as to have her license plate changed to read Y-E-O! Boy, weren’t we surprised when we found out that it wasn’t Italian at all, but Italians trying to pronounce the English “How are you?”!
Send an e-mail my way! I’d like to talk. Visit my page on i-Italy. As a matter of fact, everyone here should create there own page! It is an awesome Italian/Italian-American networking site.
“‘medigan” .. love it! hahaha I
translation for those not familiar = “American”
I remember my Italian grandmother always grumbling that word at my father, who was of Scottish decent, when she was not pleased with him or when referring to his side of the family!
yup, pronounced “mah-dee-gahnj”
Means dog shit, literally ;/
What’s your email, Chris?
I believe that /Y-E-O/, as you said they pronounced, wasn’t the italians trying to pronounce “hoe are you”. I think it was the word from dialect of Neaples “Guagliò, or Uagliò – this second is exactly pronounced like the capital letters Y E O) and means “boy, kid” . It is used like “Hey man!” as greeting between mates.
btw:
“Goompa” is the slightly altered “Cumpà”(dialect of Neaples), in italian “compare”. It means “mate”.
I can remember my father’s people saying “Hey! Y O” exactly as the two letters Y and O (not “yo”). I have a cousin who when we get together still says “Hey! Y O!” and it cracks me up every time. My grandfather said it all the time.
In my house,(and being a 3rd generation Napolidan/Sicilian-American) I had always understood the word Y E O as pronounced like while-yo. That there was a distinctive “L” sound in there. Hey, maybe it was the Bronx/Yonkers version LOL!!!
Ya, it’s guaglio’, ubiquitous in Campania. English doesn’t have the ‘gli’ sound, per se, but has some characteristics of English ‘y’ and ‘l’, true.
Love this!!!Thanks to Tony Soprano, my 16 year old thinks it’s so cool to say gabbagul…to my mother’s dismay. Her family is from Northern Italy and insists that Tuscano is proper Italian. My father, god rest his soul, would say “gabbagul” and “supra sa”…but he was “Naballidon”. My parents teased me when I was little by saying the biangolin man left me at the wrong house. And if you were being a little too demanding you were dubbed…paduna de buccahaus…boss of the buck (out) house. Good work!
Wow, great job. Im from South Jersey, third generation, my whole family came from south Philly. You are right on the money with those definitions. The pronunciations were dead on. Especially the food, “calamad, managot”, etc.
I know there is a ton that you dont have in there yet but I always waondered why my father and grand father would say “Putiga” when suprised or as if to say oh my god. I know the real translation is bottle (bottiglia). Just never made sense why one would say bottle when surprised….
Good luck on the dictionary. I would deffinately buy it when its ready
Growing up in central Long Island during the 1970’s, I heard many of these expressions and although I’m not Italian-American I incorporated them into my daily tongue. I have long since left Long Island and after my son asked me for the umpteenth time what ‘maron’ meant, I had to confess it was just an expression I picked up. He said, “what if you are saying something bad.” I set out to prove him wrong and your website has left me corrected! I enjoyed the read and the trip down memory lane.
“Maronn’ or Maronna” is simply the southern Italy’s dialects form for “Madonna”. That is the italian name for jesus’ mother Mary (or at least that’s what I’m told), so… when americans say “Oh God!” ,”Oh my God!”. “Jesus!” italians say “Oh mio Dio” or “Dio mio” “Gesù” or ” Madonna!” and sometimes even “mamma mia!” 😉
Actually, my mother would say “Madonna Mia” – My Mother. But not like the rock star Madonna – sounded more like “ma doan a mi a” – How it ever got the “r” in it must be because “Amiddicans” knew that Rs were pronounced like Ds. Silly Amiddicans. lol
Brooklin, really?
Some of my grandmother’s favorite phrases — I am guessing at the spellings (her people came from Venice, but be different and don’t be hatin’ just ’cause we come from the north-lol):
Colo roto sczifoso — comparable to “son-of-a-bitch,” literally “dirty, stinking, broken, smelly ass.”
Vrgone! — “shame on you!” usually shouted as she waved a wooden spoon at us.
Quanto costa? — What the hell did you pay for that? You paid too much!
Vecha Strega — my aunt’s crazy mean mother-in-law, or “old witch.”
lots of these are non-sense for me and im italian 😀
the three unknown words ->
scumanegats — Stupid F–K
gita schlamorta gita mort — You ought to die spitting blood.. ( a very bad curse)
fanabola te parida angula sord’ — Your father and your sister should burn in hell together (another bad curse)
omg they’re LOVELY
sorry, correction on that translation.
fanabola te parida angula sord’ — bascially “to hell with your father and your sisters ass also”. litterall translation is ( “go to naples your father and your sisters ass.”)
looking for spelling for a phrase that was said to wish someone another hundred years. ex: i would say, I’m 52 and they would come back with something like “per cent’anni” any ideas?
incorrect spelling but the word is pronounced ‘gen-don’. The spelling looks nothing like the pronounceation..
the spelling is correct italian 100%. Per cent’anni – for one hundres years. The meaning is that if you say so during.. let’s say a toast in a birthday party, you wish for one other hundred years to live a day like that (birthdays parties).
That’s because the immigrants all spoke dialect, mostly from the Italian Southern regions.
Cent’anni is the right spelling in Italian and it means”hundred years” . The dialects already distorted the Italian pronunciation. The way Americans heard it and reproduced it furtherly distorted the Italian dialect pronunciation.
My father is 1st generation, born in America. His family slays toasts, “Saluta for gen tanda ahna.” (Phonetically speaking. 😊)
They say it means, “Drink to your health for a hundred years.”
for one hundred years
cent anni means a Hundred Years.
Maria sounds like they were giving you a good wish to live “for a hundred years” which is what per cent anni means in Italian. (with cent sound like “chent”).
I agree with the comment that this is intended to be a wish for someone to live a long time – 100 years. Per cent’ anni is the correct spelling. The translation to English would be equivalent to “may you live to be a hundred years old”. (in good health)
I’ve just come from a nice long visit with my parents, both first generation American, their parents born in Sicily and Calabria. Whenever they toast, they say, “Salute per cent anni.” (Pronounced, salutee per chento anni.)
Although I appreciate your attempt to spread knowledge of (Southern) Italian-American terminology, a lot of it is misspelled and not accurate. Good work though
Hey Vin, I grew up in central NJ with my Sicilian family in the 50’s and 60’s and all the words in this dictionary are what I heard around my house. Everything started with a “G” instead of a “C”, like gavatel instead of cavatelli. And all the word’s endings were cut-off. Reading these words and most everyone’s was awesome! Thanks.
beeuutyful
Thanks for letting me know how mean spirited and foul mouthed my dad really was. (It was still funny though). Have you ever heard the phrases, “Mangiese la canne” (May you be eaten by dogs) or “Mangiese la zudicce” (May you be eaten by rats).
My other used to say something that was supposed to mean “may you be eaten by rats” or “I hope the rats eat you” and it sounded like “get the mongenay zuddicci” but I could never find it anywhere to know the real translation because her italian pronunciation left a lot to be desired since she was born in the US but we lived in Rockland County in NY and her dad and mom were Italian. I guess it was the “Mangiese la zudiccie” that she was trying to say.
Joyce
get the mongenay = che ti mangino (I wish that… eat you)
“i zuddicci” I have no idea, possibly “i sudici” (the dirty ones), a way to call rats? I am an Italian living in the US and this is truly fascinating!
zudiccie? mmm maybe li surici (Italian i sorci. The rats)
A real treat to see in print again (after many years) expressions I heard growing up in West New York, Hudson Co. How about ‘engood-a-sorda’ – your sisters ass. Spoken at the end of an argument.
Love the site. Brings me back to my childhood.
Anyone know what “mastandone” means?
I believe it’s “mascalzone” – rascal, rogue, but not in a malicious way.
Oh YES! My nona used to yell that at my brother whenever he’d sneak her Livfesaver candies! Mascalzone!!!
It’s a bit strange the way you wrote italian slang words and you catched very different dialects from different regions, but it’s a funny idea. Thanks
In Italy a thousand tongues
Grazi Tant’
I was reared in Wildwood, N.J. and my family used almost every slang you mentioned. I know my grandparents, aunts and uncles did know proper Italian because they were very proud to say they went to school in Italy like it was a big deal.
I still use these dialect words all the time without thinking about it!! I can’t believe how much influence the old people had on me. I would love to have them all and their slangs with me today!!
Very Good. It is true. You will hear these words in areas where southern Italian immigrants settled. You will particularly hear these slang words in areas such as Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx, NY as well as Boston and Philly. Most people who come from a southern italian american background have probably grown up hearing and using these words. These words are still used today in italian american homes and communities.
I’m glad you mentioned Staten Island. I was told by someone from Staten Island that “two-faced” was “faccia dos” or “fascia dos” (I’m not sure of the spelling. A fact that embarasses me since I grew up in Italian neighborhoods in northern NJ.). When I looked up two-faced though, I found many translations, but that one wasn’t there. Have you ever heard this? If so, do you know what dialect it is?
Trina – You wrote a long time ago, hope you see this. My family was from northern NJ in the Fort Lee area and i remember my grandmother and mother saying “faccia dos” too. I guess it’s a northern NJ thing!
“faccia tosta” = brazen (literally: hard faced)
My grandmother used to say faccia brut,meaning bad or ugly face .so makes sense faccia dos means 2 faced. She was napolitano we lived on long island
I’m inclined to agree with Mike on this one. The meaning of this phrase as I understood it growing up was “bold” or “brazen” or
“nervy”. It was never used a compliment. To North American speakers, the Italian [t] sound resembles our North American
[d] sound. So, although you heard [d], the speaker was actually saying a “t” (which is softer in Italian, especially between vowels).
I conclude that “faccia tosta” (Hard faced, or emboldened person) is the formal Italian phrase, and that this pronunciation is a dialect or local version of that phrase. It was also common in southern dialects to truncate the last syllable. Therefore
faccia tosta > faccia tos(ta) > faccia dos.
Does anyone know the phrase ” ghet toe zong” that is how it sounds, bleed from the tongue or something, my parents use to say that to me in brooklyn.
Jim,
That would mean, spit or throw up blood. That would be used in arguments.
It could also refer to someone who works very hard and is “sweating blood”, in reference to hard manual labor.
Apparently, much of this has to do with the dialect for certain parts of the country. Many of these words and phrases are pronounced quite differently, and many also take on a completely different meaning.
This one stands out: mortadafam’ – really hungy/starving (morta da fame) [moart-aa-daa-faam]
Used in anger, it translated, Death to your family!
if you yell to someone “morto di fame” you are insulting him, more or less telling him is a tramp, a loser, someone who cannot even provide food for himself (morire di fame – starve to death)
My understanding of this expression is not quite the same as you have described. As I understand it, a person describing another as a “morto di fame” is not wishing for that person to die from hunger. Instead, it is a phrase used to describe a person who is so unfortunate as to be out of work, and can’t afford to feed himself – hence “morto di fame”. By extension calling someone a “morto di fame” also has the connotation of someone who is starving to death because he is unable or unwilling to find meaningful employment, perhaps a “loser”. Compared to the English expression “starving artist” I think the two convey a similar sentiment. So rather than a death wish (as you have suggested), it is an observation or commentary on an existing state of affairs.
The term “i morti di fame” (“those who die from hunger”) is very interesting in the context of understanding our 19th and early 20th century Italian immigrant ancestors concept of social welfare. Indisputably they were hard workers as a rule and the vast majority usually looked to no one to pick up the burden of feeding themselves and their families. The men were often uncomplaining hard laborers….the women if not entirely at home tending large families often also worked in the sewing or confectionary industries…Acquainted with many when I finally did encounter such an individual who was obviously “lazy”, “good for nothing” and looking for handouts I was genuinely amazed. He was clearly an exception to the vast majority of his fellows.
From my understanding, “morti fame”, someone who is pennyless, worthless, poor, and not so much that the person is actually starving, but looking to get and save any penny he can.
The person has almost nothing.
Hi Davide
I am in full agreement with you. Morto di fame does not have to mean someone who is literally starving. It could simply refer to someone who is not well off.
I believe the post that I was responding to originally suggested that it was a death wish, something which I believe is not correct. As I have always understood it, the phrase is meant as a description of a person’s status, and does not have anything to do with wishing anybody to starve himself to death.
There is a rich and less than sympathetic socio-political connotation attached to this expression sometimes that this is someone who is dead or dying of hunger….because they won’t work….If there is one thing that can be accurately said about the overwhelming majority of Southern Italian immigrants to America, usually admitted even by their most rabid detectors…it that they were hard workers…very hard workers…..to work was usually the reason they came to America in the first place…the anomaly among them…the small minority who chose to be shiftless and not look for work..choosing instead to look for handouts all the time….were sometimes scornfully labeled by the rest…i morti di fama….the dead from hunger….
Does anyone else remember using the term “pizza fritt” for the fried dough everyone else calls zeppoli?
Yes. My aunt in Schenectady, NY still makes it!
Yes, Pizza Frizza. My mom made it whenever she made pizza.
My grandmother and mother made the fried dough in the shape of a donut and called them “belly busters”
Yes we did! We are Marchegiani, Siciliani, and ‘Basiligaga’ :).
My family always used pizza frit for fried dough or zeppoli or st joe’s cake
YES! I thought my family was the only ones that called them pizza fritt!!!!! We are from Schenectady, NY.
http://www.localsyr.com/news/new-york-state-fair/pizze-fritte-54-year-old-new-york-state-fair-tradition
For us -“pizza fritta” was fried dough…bread dough works fine…fried preferably in a cast iron skillet….probably in olive oil or a combination olive and vegetable oil (“La Spagnola”) sugared…then eaten for Saturday morning breakfast….”Zeppole” on the other hand were of two different types…there were the Neapolitan “zeppole” of Christmas Eve… basically dumplings of a rather runny dough in consistency somewhat lighter and more elastic than bread or pizza dough…though the ingredients are the same….then deep fried in a pot of oil that is the right temperature when a piece of bread tossed in floats to the top…sometimes fried with a piece a soaked salted cod tucked inside…Then for St. Joseph’s Day (March 19th) there were the “Zeppole di San Giuseppe”…a sweet dough made into a pastry puff…then stuffed with boiled yellow cream and cherries…sometimes an excused Lenten fast breaker….better bought at an Italian bakery than for an amateur to try….worth the trip!
I realize that this isn’t about recipes, but I have not been able to find the recipe for a dish my family called “moo-en-zahn”, or pickled eggplant. My grandmother, great-grandmother, and mother would put sliced, raw eggplant up in clay jars with olive oil, spices, and other veggies and we would put them on sandwiches. It was a little vinegary, but delicious! Everyone is passed away and I have no idea how to do this. Anyone help? BTW, it seems that even within the same Italian heritages, there are differences in language from New York, Philly, and Chicago. My grandparents were Napolitan and Calabrese.
We had two kinds of fried pizza. One with salami pepperoni and cheese inside (like calzone) and one with no filling, just fried with tomato sauce on top.
To sisterteresepeter
I don’t know how close this is to the recipe you grew up with, but here’s one my Mom and Aunt used to make (Sicilian):
Aunt Connie’s Pickled Eggplant
I peal but you do as you like:
slice eggplant very thin
In a small pot boil vinegar (3 parts vinegar plus 1 part water)
drop 2 or 3 slices at a time into the vinegar for about 5 seconds
place in drainer
layer in jar with sliced garlic, hot pepper flakes, olives, green or red peppers, olive oil to cover,
or anything else you want. If you add peppers drop them in the boiling vinegar.
May add any seasoning you wish.
No need to process as the pickling is sufficient!
Save the olive oil to reuse when you make more!
Mom would serve pizza frite on our birthdays. It remains the default birthday dish in my family.
In our house “pizza fritta” meant flat pieces of bread or pizza dough fried in hot oil in a skillet and then dusted with sugar as breakfast treat anytime. “Zeppoli” were (and still are) a lighter dough dropped and deep fried in a pot of hot oil and only on Christmas Eve. Some are fried with a piece of salt cod (baccala) inside, sort of a dumpling and served in place of bread at the traditional meatless meal of the pre-Vatican II Christmas Vigil. There are also the “zeppoli” di San Giuseppe traditionally made for St Joseph’s Day (March 19th) which are a pastry puff filled with yellow cream and cherries
I was trying to find the spelling for “cool-couli” (cold ass)
Great stuff
One that also comes to mind is “Brishca brolia” meaing a meal made from leftovers usually bound by eggs (sort of a garbage omlette) or to mean anythingb that was all mixed up. Example “Clean your room, it’s all Brishca brolia”
Back to “cornuto”, although it could mean unfaithful husband, in English it is “Cuckhold” or a man who watches his wife have sex with other men either by his own or the wife’s demands. In these days of sharing and swapping it may not be considered the actual true insult it is, one of the highest magnitude. In Italy no man with honor would pimp out his wife so calling someone a cornuto or cornude is like calling a man a cunt.
Or in the words of Joe Pesce in Goodfellas, “contento e cornuto.”- Content to be a jerk.
Jim, “Gette u sangue”, or variations in dialects for “gette il sangue” would mean to spit or let (throw) out the blood. I think it was meant as ” te gette u sangue ” which would mean I’m gonna make you bleed, or more like I’ll beat the blood out of you!
I grew up hearing this all the time. It can refer to someone who is a hard working person, such as “Father is working so hard that he is sweating blood (“getta lo sangue”) to support the family.
Ok.. I’m a real Italian ( I mean I was born in Italy, grew up there and still live here). My parents are from calabria, so I understand a lot of this terms. Because the main thing that all of you have to know is that all this expressions come from varius dialects of southern Italy (Napoletano-from Naples, Calabrese-frommCalabria, and Siciliano-from Sicily).
These three dialects are quite similar among them, most of the time there are only slight fonetic differences in these idiomatic expressions from one dialect to another, while the differences with standard italian are more relevant.
In this example, (iett’ u sang’ – as a calabrese would pronouce it), litterally is “to throw away the blood”, in the meaning of “to have one’s blood suck it away from oneself.
It simply means “go to work”. Where the work, of course, is intended extremely hard physically (like working in a farm, in mines ecc..)
does anyone remember “gloves” being called “wans” or something similar to that. i grew up in cicero, il n most italians in my neighborhood were calabrese as i am.
Gloves in Italian are guanti.
This is fantastic! It’s like having my grandmother here with me. You have everything she used to say on your list. This is the Italian I grew up with! I have looked everywhere for something like this. Thank you!!!
Just fyi — My grandmother’s family was from southern Sicily. They moved to Jersey City, and then upstate, NY. My grandfather, who was from Palermo, even spoke differently, and told my grandmother her Italian was “wrong.” 😉
“Ghet tu zong” literally means “bleed”.
Some more of my favorites, growing up in th Bronx and Queens were:
” Shcafadeel un gool ” which means ‘ shove it up your _ss ‘
” Goocutz or googats” lterally meaning small cucumber also moron.
” Fanobola, tu e tre quatro de vostro baez ” meaning ‘go to hell, you and three quarters of your ancestors’
Other favorites: Oofah!, Meenchia!, Strunz,
Frankiebaby,
Do you have a good translation for Oofah!, Meenchia!
I’ve heard these alot in my childhood and know when to
use them but I can’t put my finger on what they mean.
Growing up in “Little Italy in the Bronx”, the Belmont/Arthur Ave section, I am familiar with most of these phrases. Many of them were told to me by my maternal grandmother, Marguerite Barbarotto from Palermo and the Bronx. Thank you for these wonderful memories, some of which I still use today.
Top 5 sayings, I heard so much of from my ‘angry all the time’ dad. Calabrese dialect: 1. “Tido un cowchoe’lintu cooloh” Standard Italian: Ti do un calcio in tuo culo. I’ll kick your ass!
2.”PieryallahmeeZzeryia” or “Manayeeaha LA Mizeria” Per la Miseria. Oh hell no!!!
3. “inculoAHmamate” in culo a tua mama. MotherF–ker!!! more I can write a book.
4. Kecazzu fahyee duohKew? Che cazzo ci fai? What the f–k are you doing over there?
5. Fanu ‘ShKaffu eentuol’ Fachew, Se’nonDiBasta! Ti do uno schiaffa in tua faccia, se non ti smettila. I’ll smack your face if you don’t stop it!
What’s the word for pasta strainer that’s something like: scewda macaron
Hi George,
I know exactly what you are talking about. Not sure of the exact spelling, but I’ll put it down as I think and then phonetically shcallamacaroon shhka-la-mok-a-roon Hope this helps
A woman on Story Corps remembered going shopping for a colander with her Italian grandmother (who spoke no English) as a little girl. The old woman circled and circled the store looking before she finally went to the man behind the counter. Frustrated, she said, “macaroni stoppa, water gawhead.” The owner knew exactly what she meant and got her one.
This list is terrific. My parents were laughing at how many they used to hear. I’m sad that that older generation is dying off, but some of these phrases will never die.
I love this story. my mom and i were laughing about it… macaroni stoppa water gawahead. LOL! that’s great ❤
In my house it was scula pasta, and the pasta sounded more like basta.
we used to say … scolapasta, drain pasta. we are from Bari in Puglia.
Every Saturday morning in Bensonhurst in the 1950s, a truck would come around loaded with gallon bottles of (apparently) home made bleach. Ther guy had some lungs — He would call out, LOUD — something that sounded like “cha-velle,” or shavelle, or something like that. Is anyone familiar with this term? Any suggestions at how to spell it phonetically?
ours was called lastella
Yo Michael,
That guy you speak of [that sold “ga-vell”] don’t forget, in dialect ‘cha’ is pronounced as a ‘G’, & they usually dropped the last letter(s) of the word too. Anyway, he must’ve worked his way all the way over to So. Jamaica, Queens because you got it 152% right!! Don’t forget, the bottles had CORK stoppers in ’em & he would leave ’em @ the side door if my Grandmother would miss him. I thought that was the word for bleach ’cause I used the word in class once (ONLY) & everyone (teacher too) thought I was ‘Oobatz!!!’
P.S. I also remember the coal man w/ the chain drive truck, the junk man w/ the horse (w/ the bells around his belly) cart, the ice man, the eggman (w/ the push cart), all were Italian…
We had the same in North Jersey…but I thought he was saying “jabell” water.
The correct name is “Javel” and it was used as laundry bleach, pretty much the same as “Chlorox” back in the day.
I’m also from No. Jersey, and we had the guy who brought the bleach, too. Only he called it Biangoline [pronounced Beeahn-go-leen] …
In my town, Dunmore, pa, it was referred to as LUNA. My mom said because it made the whites as bright as the moon. Lol
Thank you from the bottom of my Heart for writing this Dictionary, Mille Grazie !!! I stand Proud when I say that The Real italian Family way is and will always be very very Strong in my Tight Knit Family, We eat sleep and breathe Our culture still to this very day. I grew up this Italian Way and I sing it from my Italian Heart everytime i perform at my Shows. Ciao, sincerely, Moe BellaGloria The italian Singer ” King of the 1 Hour Shows ” !! YouTube.com/MoeBellaGloria
How do you say and spell castle in the neapolitain dialect?
maybe ” ‘u castillo” not sure.
Great collection of the Italian words and phrases I heard growing up in the 1950’s on the east coast. I finally understand the meaning of struntz and yes Uncle Beans was a struntz! 🙂
this dictionary is very interesting: it shows how lively a language can be and it’s amazing how people can transform it!
great job 🙂
Whoever made this dictionary–thank you very much. I laughed like crazy!
One thing I didn’t see (but hear all the time, especially from older women, like my mother-in-law) is “Oo-di!” It’s used in a moment of panic, like when the “mopeen” (also “mopeena”, ie “dishtowel”) catches on fire because you’ve been waving it around the gas stove as you talk, while you’re cooking.
Another one I hear is “shah-quad” (phonetic spelling), which means (or so I’m told) “all crooked” or “messy”. For example, my niece–a teacher in Texas–once told her students as they walked through the corridor to an assembly, “Straighten up this line. It’s all shaquad!” (At which point, one of her students–a recent transfer from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina–said, “Hey! Shaquad! That’s my sister’s name!” (I love that story…)
Honestly, when I first met my husband and his family, I thought the words they used were made up. I’m still not convinced that some of them aren’t. (Jalapida momida?) But this site has given some credibility to the musical and sometimes comical utterances I hear from day to day. I’ve bookmarked it for reference. (WHAT did you call me?)
“Oo-di!” would mean “Oh, God!” “O Dio!” Mopeen is a made up word for a dishtowel. Kind of Americanized. “Shah-quad.” would stand for d’aquato- which is something like watered down or watered. So, when you say that to someone, it would mean their brain is full of water or watered down.
I’m wondering if sha-quad is the same as (this is phonetic) shaquat. This is what my mom said, “Italian men like their women to be bella shaquat. You know bella shaquat? Like a tomato so ripe the skin has split.” Her parents were from Sicily.
Lol bella shaquat that is great.
I grew up in my grandmothers house hearing a lot of these words.to see them in one place brings back so many memories of growing up.she passed away on august 27 2011 and I will miss her everyday but I will keep her memory alive by teaching my children these words so that when I’m gone they can teach there children.the warmth that I feel every time I hear one of these words or hear somebody speak in napolitan or broken English is indescribable.I hope to visit my grandmothers hometown in avellino sometime in the near future.anyway thank you for this website
My grandmother came here at age 13 in 1887 from a small town not far from Potenza. They lived at first in St. Anthony’s parish below Greenwich Village, then in the west 30’s around 9th ave. My mother, born 1907, was the ninth of eleven children and didn’t speak much Italian but words she did sometimes use were Neopolitan dialect. She occasionally made a kind of stuffed bread she called what sounded like figuatz. Standard Italian would have been fogasse or foccacia. And the simple meal of macaroni and beans sounded something like basta vasool rather than pasta e fagioli.
There is no J in Italian thus the G can be either hard or soft. Napiltons (Neopolitans from Naples) are criticized even in Italy for dropping all the endings of words. Fagioli becomes Fagool and in America, Fasool. So you’re right and all the menus in America are wrong. Hope this helped.
I grew up in East Boston and heard many of the words listed. Did I miss cedemonia (ceremony)to describe someone , usually a woman, making too big a deal about something. A complaint. Fa la cerimonia.
Or, mezza stunard’; scumbari; gatzee (maybe from Yiddish) and chiaccheressa (chatterbox)… something I was often accused of being.
I’ve studied language corruption. Sometimes regional differences, Boston vs. NYC, might be also be due to effect of other immigrant languages. In Boston there were Polish and Yiddish words in the mix. It all made for a very rich “gravy”.
I do a one-woman show on two Italian-American women. It’s rich in language; mostly cultural difference and problems of assimilation. And often very comical.
Thanks.
Hi Laura,
I am Sicilian and grew up in the SF Bay Area. All four grandparents from Lentini/Catania area. Some settled in Boston, some in Omaha (?), and the bravest ones came out here. After much research, I found we also had a lot of Yiddish in our daily language. I am interested in your one-woman show. Where do you perform? I’d love to take my family!
Thanks, Geralyn Giese
We used (still use) gatzee/gatzees, meaning little decorative but useless things… anyone else? Also, scasciad (ska-shaad) meant messy, disorganized, shitty, screwed up. Spacone meaning flashy person (guido/mob wife type).
NYC and northern NJ do the same with mixing slang from various countries. Mostly Italian, Irish, Yiddish, and Spanish. Polish sometimes.
I grew up in Lorain, Ohio during the ’50s and ’60s, the product of a Sicilian-Polish marriage. We lived in my Sicilian grandfather’s home and I heard lots of these expressions from him and my numerous relatives. Reading this has brought back a lot of memories, especially of the holiday celebrations we had at this time of year.
Does anyone recall hearing a children’s song or rhyme with words that sound like this? (Pardon my spelling — I’m doing this phonetically).
Calencita,
Somaterita
Rege mangia l’ove (“The king eats eggs”?!)
i bebe mangia chicche chicchie (chicky chicky?) . . .
and I don’t remember the rest.
My mom used to sing this to me when I was very little. Anyone know the rest or the correct words?
Thanks so much and buon natale!
Jeannine S.
In my family in Worcester, MA, my Sicilian Grandmother would sing this song.
A woga a woga
a rege mangia l’ova
a mama la adina
a (insert child’s name hear) goo abanza agina…rey, rey, rey!
I meant here…not hear…geez!
As a child while eating I would be asked “did you eat your chicche?” Or “eat your chicche!”. It was the meat on my plate which I did not like to eat. Where does this come from?
Ah the cheche, I never heard this outside of my family . My grandmother would say ” your mother don’t want macaroni she wants the cheche”.at family gatherings when looking for the meat we say where’s the cheche.the cheche was a once a year treat for my grandmother growing up in avellino.
My dad was calabrese and mom was aviglanese. She referred to EAT THE CHECHE, eat the meat. Probably because they didn’t get very much meat.
Love love love this dictionary- helped me to remember some of the terms that were forgotten once my grandparents had gone! I also remember the oh -de!! My family immigrated to Boston and Providence!! Still use some of these to teach my own kids now I have more!
My Napoletane grandmother grandmother had a good response when I asked her what’s for dinner.
o’cazze ‘e ciuccio cu cucuzzille e l’ove
u gazza di chooch cu googoozeel e loave (phonetics)
donkey dicks (literally) with squash & eggs
My father still says that, we live in Toronto, Canada o’cazze ‘e ciuccio cu cucuzzille e l’ove
LOL!
I remember hearing, “Ha perduto la giobba,” meaning, of course, “He lost his job.”
WOW…I didn’t hear a lot of those word in a long time..My mother and father used to use all the words above
Anyone ever hear of the word yachetone (spelling??) It means someone who talks too much, or at least that’s how we use it in our family!
pronounced “kee-ak-ya-done” (“done” like “own”)
means someone who talks too much.
Lol! It’s “chiacchierone”
The real word would be chiacchierone (pronounced KYA-kye-RONE)
Hi Ralph,
Yes I have but know it from the Italian: Chiarracar(r)one.
Buon pomergiggio,
Richie
The word my mother always used was chiacchierone. I guess yachetone is midway between english and italian!
Yes. Southern Italians leave of the initial hard-g or hard-k sound, so English ice is modern Italian ghiaccio but is pronounced yaccio. So Southern Italian you mentoned “yachetone” is modern Italian chiachierione (pronounced something like kyakyerone, meaning “chatterbox.”
I found this very interesting because I am studying Italian, but it was mostly unfamiliar to me because all my Italian ancestors came from northern Italy, mostly in the early to mid 1800s, and their descendants whom I knew (unfortunately) only spoke English.
alot of the spelling is wrong. You pretty much summed it up but correct some of those spellings. You have words using the letter K in it. Where Italians not russians. Lol
You meant to say, “We’re (we are) Italians not Russians.” See how easy it is for words to get misspelled. Imagine how it was for our grandparents and great-grandparents when they first came here not knowing a word of English. I believe the dictionary is meant to give all possible spellings, whether correct or incorrect, that were commonly used, especially since many words were “made-up” or combined English and Italian. Just Enjoy!
Do you know this one ? :
Shuncad – meaning in a real bum or low life, worse than a gavon.
Shuncad lol! That’s Abruzzese dialect also means lazy, sloppy
My mother would point out “shang-gad” (or as you say, “shuncad”) when describing outfits on various women, or cheap Christmas decorations that fell apart. She meant sloppy and cheap. Also “sha-woo-dad” meant all messed up and sloppy or falling apart. She would tell us we were all sha-woo-dad and then straighted our clothing.
Thanks! Lots of fun reading this dictionary and seeing so much from the East coast. This sure reminds me of our experience.
In California’s 1970’s San Francisco Bay Area, a lot of us, who grew up with Sicilian in the home and among our family and friends, did not know until our high school Italian class teacher informed us, that what we knew, was not Italian: for example, idda and iddu were not Italian for he (Lui) and she (Lei); piccirriddu and piccirridda were not Italian for little boy (Ragazzino) and little girl (Ragazzina); and, areri was not Italian for again (di nuovo). Many, believing they’d get an easy A, were in for a rude awakening! And, in everyday life, for example, it was especially enlightening for us to discover that a scula pasta is a collander and a cupino is a ladle!
Then, after high school and college Italian, I learned about Professor Cipolla, of New York’s John Hopkins University, who leads Arba Sicula, a
world-wide organization dedicated to the preservation of Sicilian culture and language. For those who are interested, this organization has plenty of interesting books available through LEGAS that may be of interest. I have enjoyed all of them, and I refer to Bonner’s Sicilian Grammar book often.
Thanks again!
I had the same problem with Spanish. I know Puerto Rican, Cuban, and South American dialects. At school they taught us Castillan Spanish, which my teacher informed us nobody in Spain even uses anymore. My friends could never understand why I didn’t know Italian because it was “just like Spanish”. Not to me! Lol. The same reason I can’t follow Portugese. If someone from Spain tries to talk to me, I say: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Portugese” and they ask me if I speak Spanish because they are speaking Spanish and not Portugese.
I know this thread is about Italian slang and I’m getting off topic here, but I’m interested to know about these terms as although my family is unsure about its heritage, we’re pretty sure we’re Italian for a variety of reasons.
I’m also finally learning what some of the words I’ve heard for much of my life mean or at least how they are spelled. It’s interesting to hear about ones different from the dialects I’m used to from various areas of Italy. Everyone I’ve ever known was either Neopalitan (I always thought the spelling was Napolitan, and yes, I do know how to pronounce it. 🙂 ) or Sicilan or half and half. The only thing I remember their parents yelling was: “My mother told me never to marry a Neopalitan!” “MY mother told me never to marry a Sicilian!”
Unfortunately much of what I know in Italian is just curse words, lol.
I also wonder if someone can tell me if I am spelling “butan” or “butana” right. Yes, I know what that means, lol.
Also, can someone please tell me how to spell the word that is pronounced “badjagaloop”? I have always been curious to know that. I’ve never been quite sure of the definition either. I was pretty sure it meant idiot or something like that, but I’m startng to suspect it’s something worse.
I almost took Italian in school. I was taking Spanish and French and told my guidance counselor I wanted to take Italian as well. His reaction was “What? Do you want to work for the United Nations or something?” I did get into the class, but decided to drop it because my class was full of Snookis and I didn’t want to have to deal with that. However, from what I am reading here, high school Italian would not have done me much good in talking to real people.
I grew up with a different word for fart. My grandmother was from Sicily and we called it beetadul. I am sure I spelled it wrong but I thought that was the word for fart until I was older.I grew with a lot of slang Italian words. like umbriago which means no good drunker. and spinata which means all messed up.Probably spelled wrong too.
Darlene, I knew how to phonetically say fart in middle class italian [scoreggio] and in sicilian it is [pirito]. We pronounced it: [pee di too]. So there you have it, now you can call someone a fart in two italian dialects. I feel like I did this site a favor.
Vinnie from Buffalo & now in Cincinnati.
what is the slang word for toilet or bathroom? I keep hearing what sounds like “pichadu” on the Sopranos…molto grazi!
Wow, over a year ago, no matter. Anyway, the slang word for bathroom is “beckausu” (bec-cow-sue) which is literally the American term “back house”. Before there was indoor plumbing and toilets, there was the back or out house”
You are correct with pichadu. I have heard that word countless times growing up. In fact, when one of us kids would pour a big glass of water or milk ot whatever, my Dad would say, “look at the pichadua”, meaning like a big piss pot. Has anyone ever heard a spanking referred to as a “scupalone”? Or the curse “Che te potz e shcattar”? Pardon the spellings.
here’s some others i say/know of which i didn’t see here
or reply to. i am in Rhode Island, we come from between Rome and Naples.
Places like Fondi, Itri, Montecalvo, Raviscanina.
– pouton (whore) “poo-tahn”
– bombaleeth (drunk) (with the “th” like the, a dead stop.)
– spah-cone, shpa-cone (american guido, flashy man, showoff)
– scoom-bah-dee (ashamed, embarrased)
– scoos-tha-mahd (eating too much, like a pig)
– ma-nej or ma-nejja (darn it, frustration)
– doo-ya-vach (two-faced person)
– bobba-lawks (cobwebs)
– ah-speth (wait !) -ah-speth-a-mee-notes (wait a minute)
– moo-thon-thees (longjohns, thermal underpants)
– skee-votes (eww, something gross, a verb)
– fritatta (free-todd) egg sandwich
I had absolutely no idea there was Italian slang for american guido. I know I can say that here. Every time I meet people from Italy they tell me it is an ethnic insult. Not in my neighborhood.
skee-votes…I wonder if that’s where the term: “it skeeves me” comes from.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and now live in Chicago, me and my amicci and familigia in both places still talk this way amongst ourselves.
maronn! semplicemente bellissimo. bravi! keep going!
Trying to get a spelling and meaning for “ga gatz” or just “gatz”. I thought it meant “nothing”, as in, “that particular credit card doesn’t give you points or any kind of rewards. They give you “gatz”, or “ga gatz”.” meaning “nothing”. Implied sarcastically or with disdain, or disgust. Can you help me with this? Couldn’t find it in your glossary which by the way is quite extensive and brings back memories of my “yoot”, to quote Joe Pesci in “My cousin, Vinny”!
My grandmother used to say ungatz for nothing and eegatz when something sounded ridiculous and cagatz when she was frustrated if you or anybody can figure that out let me know. She was napolitano
my family said ewe-Gatz. Naples dialect.
Ronnie- as for the word, “eegatz”- I wonder if that’s where Americans get our expression, “eegads!” I have no idea, just thinking.
@Karen @Ronnie:
“Eegats” is possibly English-to-Italian, like “baccausa.”
“Ye gods and little fishes” is the English expression. “Eegats” may derive from this, picked up because it sounded vaguely like a euphemism for the Italian, “e cazzo?”, as in, “WTF?” (Although, it sounds like Nonna was saying more like “GTFOH!”)
what great help this has been, i`m semi retired and attempting to write a book about Italian Americans in New York. Why i`ve chosen this subject i just dont know,but how fascinating and how useful is this.
Mitch John, Cyprus. April 24 April 2012.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are at least three origins of the “Italian” language; the “proper” Italian, dialect specific to each region/municipality, and the bastardization of dialect we usually call Italian-American; which is the subject of this thread. Italy began as a loose collection of city states that grew to regions and has only been considered a unified country for a century or so. Thus the customs, food preparation, and language vary widely. The “proper” Italian is probably most connected to Roma and from my experience growing up in Central New York and in the culture of Abbruzza di Molise, I would say that the dialect above is most closely associated with “Nabbalatan,” or the bastardized dialect of those from Naples.
oh goodness thank you for this. I’m third generation italian american and we still used some of these words growing up. I remember when I was 15 being over a friend’s house with my brother making maccaroni. the time came to strain the maccaroni and I asked my friend where her sculabast was… I spent probably a good four minutes,desprately trying to remember the english word for it… i even called my brother over to help, but we couldn’t figure it out. finally my friend said ohhh you mean a sieve… this might be a litle silly,but that memory has stuck with me because it reminded me that as americanized as my family had become, our heritage, our customs were still part of our upbringing, even if it was just in a word or two
Love this list! Thank you! But “maronna mia” is not “My God” but “my blessed mother” or “Our Lady” – it is “madonna mia” where “madonna” refers to the Madonna, the Blessed Virgin Mary, not the singer! 🙂
I remember a word my father would say for linoleum , not sure but he used to say ,,, time to lay the Shidodd
That sounds kind of Yiddish.
Very good to read. My father’s family originates from Siciliy and immigrated to Birmingham, AL through New Orleans. Funny to see how similar the “American Italian” I heard growing up is to the Northeast version! The biggest diffrerence I see is that the people here add an ‘ah’ sound at the end of the words. I appreciate your work, my wife now has a better understanding of some of the things my Dad says!
the bacousa
My mom always said, “Company’s coming,” whenever someone dropped a spoon on the floor. I’ve always wondered if that was a Sicilian superstition, or just a thing in my own family–I’ve never heard anyone else saying that.
I was called testaduda, hard headed, as a stubborn child.
One of my great aunts, after a meal, always said, “Per la bocca,” meaning she wanted just a little taste of something sweet to finish, “For the mouth.”
When we were little and asked to be picked up, grownups would say no, “You’re a big baccala.” I felt a bit insulted when, years later, I learned baccala means codfish. Hmmph.
I would REALLY love to know more about this next word. I’ve never heard anyone else say it:
My great uncle was getting out of his car when my brother Steve and boisterous cousin David stuck their heads out the upstairs window and called down, “Hey, Uncle Gerry!” Uncle Gerry shouted back up, “Hey, hey, hey musutu (moo-SOO-too). When the boys came downstairs, my cousin asked, “Grandma, what’s musutu mean?” She started laughing, saying, “Who calla you musutu, Davey?” David replied, “Uncle Gerry, but he could have been calling me, he could have been calling Steve, I don’t know.” She said, “Oh, no, Davey–He calla YOU. Musutu mean bigga mouth.”
I’ve heard that belief before, but I think a lot of ethnicities believe it. Also, if it is a fork, it means it will be a woman.
“testaduda, hard headed” = my Northern Italian mom used to say “capa tosta,” which, in the Southern dialects, comes out as “gabbadost’.” She also used another “capa” expression–“capa fresca,” a “cool head,” only she meant it more as “fresh (as in “impudent”) head.” I heard Tony Soprano refer to someone on that show as being a “gabbavrischia” inma situation where my mother would have said her version of the expression, and so I assume that’s a Southern pronunciation.
I believe “hard-headed” is “testa dura”. That’s what my grandfather used to describe the Calabrese and he was quite proud to acknowledge the phrase because, being from Calabria, it was a compliment.
I used to get called ma-jah-gul-loop. Or at least something to that effect… lol. Does anybody here know what I’m referring to?
‘What are you doing? You ma-jah-gul-loop.’
I asked that too, lol. I’m pretty sure it is “ba” and not “ma” though. Unless it depends on the region. Hopefully someone will answer us, but since most of these posts seem to be at least a year old, Idk if they will even see these. 😦
Bacigalupo is an Italian surname, and it was the name of a character on the old Abbott & Costello TV show who was a clownish sort of Chico Marx stereotype, although he was much shrewder than Chico. Maybe you were being compared to Bacigalupo.
Dear Fellows, I really don’t believe my eyes..i’ve been looking around for ages , for someone to share the dictionary of..my Granma who used to speak the Sicilian-American dialect. and i know all of those words plus others..it’s wonderful knowing that all those words are not getting lost..
Carru -Car
parkari lu carru – park the car
begghicella – the bag
iettasangu- a person who makes you spit blood..
and many more..
My family uses many of these words all of the time. Italians from Rhode island baby.
here’s a few classics…
ga’binyost-gossiping
Ficonazz’-nosy
Mopiiiiiin’-dish towel
And a favorite VA’FRITT’-go fry!
I love that you mention gagutz. Its a fave.
I grew up in Rhode Island…. Jersey and Brooklyn are pretty Italian, but Rhode Island is actually where the Italian plurality is in the USA. Literally EVERYONE in my hometown was at least part Italian. Imagine a whole state where everyone appreciates pasta vazool in gravy 😉 and the joys of ravioli night, where bakeries dont close Sundays but on Mondays, where most people understand these words even with Lois Griffin accents… And the office assistants pronounced your name right when you get called to the office in high school. Even if it had more vowels and syllables than folks in like Idaho would assume possible 🙂
Omg, it’s been forever since I’ve heard anyone use gravy in that context. I’d almost forgotten it. 😦
My mother uses the Naples pronunciation for grandfather — thathone. Does anyone know what it means and the possible spelling?
What is the word for being treated like a don…gabaditch?? many thanks.
Has anyone ever heard the word ‘smozza tudda’ – (pronounced smoe -tsah -TOO- dah) used for ‘broccoli? Everyone I know of Italian descent uses this word instead of the standard Italian ‘broccoli’.
There were so many English words incorporated into not only the Italian language of early immigrants but into the dialects as well. I read a short article a long time ago about this phenomenon. I found a link to it once on the web but forgot to save it. Hysterical stuff, as entire sentences are mixed in with the dialects, such as ‘sti sciusi allucunnu naisi’ for ‘these/those shoes look nice’. If I locate it I’ll post the link here – that is, if people still read these replies.
I would ask my dad how to say something in Italian and he would do one of four things: come out with the proper word, come out with a Sicilian dialect pronunciation of the standard Italian word, come out with an entirely different word (such as the above mentioned ‘smozzatudda’), or come out with the English-Italian- Sicilian gumbo mixture. I remember a lot of them, and if interest is still here, I can post them.
Great website.
Please do!
Love the list! It brings back a lot of memories. We live in Toronto, and my folks are from Molise. I believe our dialect is fairly close to the Neapolitan. My sister & I have always gotten a kick out of the familiar words that show up on the Sopranos.
I think the spelling of many of the words is up for debate, because they really are primarily spoken.
Forgive me if I’m missing these in the list or comments above:
-gualio’ (pronounced “waleeo” = gualione = guy, boy
Tony uses this is one episode, when he’s watching a Mickey Rooney movie. My sister and I found it hilarious
-mangana’un = not even one
It was only after I studied Italian in University that I realized this is properly “neanche uno”.
-this I have no clue how to spell, but it’s pronounced, “sherot” = jerk
Does anyone know this word and how it should be spelled?
I should add my mom lived in Jersey City for three years, when she was a teenager. & we still have relatives there.
has anyone head the phrase pitchada pepe? (not sure if im spelling it right)
meaning when someone starts up about something
I’m gonna make a guess on this one. Sounds like somebody is ‘pitching pepper’. Which makes sense, sending something irritating in to the mix.
Oops, that should be “pisciare”!
The slang / dialect word for toilet is ( pisciaturo )
I was born in Argentina to Neapolitan parents , the same phenomenon happen there with the Spanish language , the Italian influence created a new idiom called LUNFARDO,
Too cool.
What about moo-nates? This was a word my family (Newark) used for a mess, or when something was in pieces. Like, “You put that cookie (bish-gawt) in your pocket and now it’s all in moo-nates. Also, what about un-gwike-ya? This was used for a meal that was just thrown together by a ‘medigan. Like, “I ordered the zupa-da-pashe at that new restaurant on the avenue and it was nothing but un-gwike-ya.” Lastly, what about coo-baad?, the feeling of being cramped or in a tight space. “We went over to their house for cake and coffee and their living room was so small I felt so coo-baad the whole time.”
Aha! These I know. Must be Newark words. 🙂
Trash/garbage= immondizia or in Rome monnezza.
Also, coo-pa-LEEN, for a wool hat (ski hat). Your mother would say, “It’s cold out, make sure you wear your coo-pa-LEEN today.”
[…] “salut” (salute), “bacouz” (bagno), e la lista continua, se volete, qui. Come potete vedere, molte sono parole vicine al napoletano o comunque ai dialetti del sud. Di […]
Thank you for a delightful trip down the memory lane of Brooklyn 60s-70s. I was a French Canadian married into a Brooklyn/LI family. 7 years in Brooklyn was an education for which I should have gotten 2 years of college credits, that is after the first year of shock and acclimating. Brooklyn folks are nice people…I liked it/them better than LI. I have met Italians visiting this country who have had snobby attitudes toward the Italian-American vernacular. And, my son, after going to college and living in Manhattan for a few years picked on me for my use of the Italian-American forms of everyday Italian words. I have respect for language that is local to a geographical area any where in the world. It comes with maturing and a growing sense of wonder about people and the world. (I have heard French mocking French Canadian speech. And, hey, the British make fun of us..along with the Welch, Irish, Scottish) Oh, and everyone corrected the Hebrew I was learning. Language seems to be part of people’s religion, though they don’t acknowledge it. My opinion is that it is all beautiful!! 🙂
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you’re an expert on this subject. Well with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the gratifying work.
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Congratulations ! “As we said in the Tenements in “da BRONX,”
“YA DONE GOOD !”
The Street Italian was, Napuletana, Siciliana, Baresa, Calabresa dialects and slang. Ya gotta know dat we wuz all First generation,not like the WANNABE
ITALIANO’S who tried but could never make it with their ‘Merican interpretation of a Beautiful Language which blends itself in dialectical differences but still
melodic. NO, I’m not a snob, just a Bronx street guy who grew up with it and takes great pride in our Heritage. Keep up the good work. I’m anxious to see any and all updates. TUTTO A POSTO.!
Angelo
It’s nice to hear someone speak New York again as well as Italian slang! I live in the South now and half the time I have no idea wth these people are talking about.
I grew up with my grandmother and grandfather- she was from Sorrento and he was from Naples. They seemed to speak the same or similar dialects. Can someone tell me what “mouse” would be in Napolitan? it sounds phonetically like, “Zutagil” or sootagil. And snail- which they pronounced as “marruttz”. They had a saying which only makes sense in Napolitan, but means nothing in English- it was, “Manage o zutagil”, which they said meant, “Gosh darn, the mouse”. Anybody ever hear that expression?
Literally Mouse = TOPO or TOPOLINO
NAPULETANO= SURACILLA (SU RA CHEELLA)
Go to YouTube and pull up Pepino The Italian Mouse by Lou Monte
and learn the NAPULETANO EXPRESSIONS.
CIAO e. TUTTO POSTO.
Angelo
Thank you, Angelo, now I see!
Karen,
You got it 100+% right, “Manage a zutagil” = “Darn the mouse”. Very common phrase. (It may not be right, but remember, we’re talkin’ “dialect” here.)
I grew up in Queens second generation Italian, my father grew up in Brooklyn with his parents that imigrated from Avellino and this reminded me of them soooo much. This is 90% of the things they said. I actually say alot of these curses and never knew what they ment. Thanks for reminiding me of the good old days when they were here.
My mother taught me to say “sca shod” when something was screwed up or a mess. Most of the words on here are familiar to me also. We grew up in Jersey, Italian American. Is this familiar to anyone? I see a similar one above, but not exact.
Scasciato/a = ruined, busted, messed-up. My husband says it all the time. Born in La Spezia but grew up in Rome…
Greetings! Very useful advice within this article! It is the
little changes that will make the largest changes. Thanks a lot for
sharing!
Hello I am a Canadian, born in north western Quebec, in 1954. We are all living in Ontario now since 1965. My parents came from Calabria, Italy. We learned to speak their dialect. I recognize a lot of the words on your list. But I want to know if anyone ever says ” fuocu mio”. It’s used when something bad has happened. Or if you cannot stand something. I used to hear as well: e chimu ti jett u sangu. When someone was upset with someone they said this. Also: malanova mu ti vene. if you were bad. We use our dialect like we our own language using the language from their town, Gerocarne. I can say so many things. It is like I want to preserve this language. Just like your list. I studied French, Italian and Spanish. So I know how words should be spelled in Italian. For example: Amu din da iamu means: We must leave. In italian you write: Ce ne dobbiama andare. Another one: A duva jisti? Means: Where did you go? In Italian: Dove sei andato? Another: Cumu ti chiami? What is your name? Italian: Come ti chiami? Another: Cin dai iru. : means: They left. In Italian: Se ne sono andati. A duva ijiru? Where did they go? Dove sono andati? Oo vidi?. Do you see? Hai visto? Cin daiu. He went away. Se n’e andato. Cu vinne? Who came? Che e venuto? I have many more.
fuocu mio means = my fire! is like = chimu ti jett u sangu = we are going to suck your blood malanova mu ti vene = bad things will happen to you!
I should have written: Ce ne dobbiamo andare.
Sorry, It should be; Chi e venuto?
Really nice job! 🙂 I’m italian and I think there are no chance to lost this “language” because in italy dialect is spoken by the most of people nowadays and most of them/us still have the american dream. So maybe you’re serach never stop 🙂
I love this so much! I tried learning Italian and I realized that the pronunciations didn’t seem correct. Turns out all of these words were Brooklyn-ized. Spoken and understood here in Kearny, NJ and our roots in Brooklyn. Grazie for this!
Thank you so much for this. I grew up in Brooklyn in the 70’s and 80’s and am half Italian: Napolitano and Calabrese. I heard many of these growing up. It makes me so homesick to read them now- my father is gone and I live on the West Coast.
Also, reading this had made me inexplicably hungry. 🙂
I feel your pain. I live in South Carolina atm and boy are you guys making me homesick! These people are so…vanilla..it’s so boring! And they know nothing about food.
(They also know nothing about loyalty. Ugh.)
My friend from Brooklyn tells me you don’t get much real food on the West Coast either as he’s currently living in San Francisco.
-Trina O.
NY/NJ
When Neapolitan grandfather was referring to a guy who had a high opinion of himself he would call him, “Mastro Filippo” ?????? Who knows…maybe a reference to a local guy in the old country who was a big shot (bigga shotta). Also this from Sicilian grandmother…exclamation, “Oh, Maria Santissima!” Translated to “Oh, most sainted mother!”
Anna Marie L. NJ/NY
These words are certainly used in Cleveland, Ohio too. Thanks for the site!
I went to high school in Westbury Long Island which was pretty much wall to wall Italians. Using a lot of these phrases was prevalent not only among those of Italian descent but amongst all of us. Some of the words I did not find here – Abeetz for pizza; lacho bijok eat c–t; possibly from lancia bigiocco(?) lick the jewel. gibone – possibly from the French gibbon( monkey ) – meaning a jerk. another was Facheen a med – possibly from va tine a media get lost at noon. Most were just used as expletives and the majority of us didn’t really know what we were saying.Etymology is sort of a hobby with me. Another observation – kez a deech Whaddya say as a greeting. Originally in Italy no one would have known what that meant, but a lady whom I know here in Germany says they use that in parts of Italy as a greeting as well. Interesting some of this stuff is now being adopted in the old country. By the way I told a young teenage girl here in Germany whose family came from Calabria to click on Lou Monte. Her family got a kick out of it. Itz getting late, gotta sign off. As I get more ideas, I’ll check back in. Ciao( Germans use this quite frequently as a goodbye )
HOLLY, Giessen, Germany
Yeah, my grandmother also used to say, “A-pizz” for pizza. Why did they put “A” in front of so many things? Anybody know? She also said, “A-boka-di-lay” for a cup or glass of milk. “
Karen, in southern Italy a lot of the dialects omit the “l” in a word e.g. “a pietz” would be “la pizza” – in this restaurant I go to here in Giessen, Germany they feature “spaghetti a matriciana” a dish from Matricia. It would be “la matriciana” but– They also drop the last vowel in a word – thus “a Beetz” They also drop the g in a word with “gu” guaglione is waglio – guapo becomes – wapo – thus the slur “Wop” Don’t know why but it is.
possibly because the standard Italian “una” (“a” or “an” in English) is spoken as “na” in Neapolitan…which is not by the way necessarily always a corruption of so called “standard Italian” by any means. It is simply how the vernacular language came to be spoken in that area on account of the surrounding influences. What you heard is probably ” a pizza “… as in “would you like a pizza ?”The other phrase in standard Italian likely translates into “un poco di latto” or in English…”a little bit of milk”. The letter “P” can sometimes sound like “B” when spoken in American Southern Italian dialect which is perhaps more of a corruption of a “legitimate” language (if any can be termed that !) often incorporating the vernacular languages of the entire southern half of the Italian boot and some “Americanisms” as well.
spusada=sposata >married
Just found your site. What a treat! Thanks you for all the work you put into it.
Tom Fusia
What about “Liava Pinsirea” my grandma always told me it meant get it off your head and I don’t know how accurate it is but maybe someone else knows it
In Italian I would say, “levati il pensiero” ..lift the thought off of yourself..
Love it ! I grew up in that ny nj area and speaka da gabagool italian! Thanks so much!
Anyone know how to spell the Italian word spoken before a dead person’s name? Also, it’s exact translation? Phonetically spelled “abunonama”? It’s Napolitano dialect. Thanks!
buon anima = good soul
I believe what you are hearing is the Neapolitan vernacular of
la buon’ anima pronounced as (a)bonanima or (a)bunamina.
In many southern Italian dialects the traditional vowel “o” has been replaced by “u”, and the consonant sounds [p] [t] and [k]
are frequently replaced by [b] [d] and [g] in dialect. Italian spelling does not use certain letters such as “k” and “j” and “w” and “x”.
example: official Italian scopa (broom) becomes scupa
official Italian capicollo becomes gabigullu or gabigull’
Many individuals among the older generations did not have the opportunity to go to school, so the language that was passed on to them in their region was handed down orally (not from text books). It is easy to see how “compare” in official Italian gets repeated as goomba’, the [k] sound becomes [g] and the vowel [o] becomes prounced as a [u] (written here as ‘oo”).
The immigrants who came to America did not “corrupt” the official Italian. After all, the Florentine language itself was only a dialect until it became elevated to official national status.
Immigrants to North America were forced to invent new words for things which simply did not exist in their old country. The result is a colourful blend of Italian dialect, English, and local vernacular. A living language is one that constantly changes to reflect its new environment.
This word was used a lot in my Sicilian household, miss-keen-ah or mischina…..basically a pathetic person. Also, poo-peed-ah-me-ah or puppida Mia, basically a term of endearment 🙂
Don’t forget…basnigol which is Italian slang for basil!
I remember my dad saying basnagol for basil. When my wife and I were first married we lived in a Ponte neighborhood and we all had vegetable gardens. I said to my neighbor “That’s great basnigol” and he looked at me like I had three heads. He was from Rome..
My grandma used to say fazzaneegol ,I spelled it out how it sounded when she said it) for basil.she was from avellino . She was nabolitan(again spelled out how it sounded) not neopolitan.
My grandfather from Cefalu, Sicily, used to call basil “basalico” with the accent on the last syllable.
I too recall two versions of the plant we all call Sweet Basil in North American English. Growing up my ears heard “Basa Nicol” from a Calabrese dialect (with the very last syllable stressed). In university I learned the official Italian word was “basilico” (with the second syllable stressed). My own theory is that previous generations of Calabrese speakers did not learn the word from the written form “basilico”. Instead it was passed down orally. It is not a stretch for someone with limited reading ability to hear Basa Nicol from the intended utterance “basilico” especially when there is universal familiarity with San Nicola (good old St Nick) and Basare (which is a variation of official Italian “baciare” (to kiss). If you close your eyes and attempt to say the official word “basilico” (with the second vowel stressed) and then repeat this time with the final vowel stressed, it sounds very much like Basa Nicol (unaccented final vowel “a” is frequently omitted in spoken Calabrese) (reinforced perhaps by the semantic meaning associated with basa (kiss) and Nicol (shortened form of Nicola (“Nicholas”).
My Northern Italian mother used to say, in a situation where in English we might say, “”Well, he made a real pig’s ear/dog’s dinner/unholy mess outta that!” she’d say “a pasticcia,” to mean a jumble, which word I discovered later literally means “pie filling,” as in the word “pastry”(“dough with a filling”). As it happens, as a young kid I came across a description of a work of art as being a “pastiche,” and guessed, from knowing the word from Mom, that it meant a “mash-up” of sorts, and to my surprise, I found I was right; while it’s a French word which moved into English, it’s one of those cognate words which ends up NOT being a “false friend.” You know what they say in Italian– “traditore-traduttore” (“the translator-betrayer”) so you always have to watch out.
This is great, very comprehensive! I put together several videos of my family explaining the meaning of various Italian-American slang words (all my Grandparents born in Sicily and now families mainly based in NY/NJ area), and it is good to see some cross-referencing here! If anyone is interested…
I can’t tell you how much I LOVE these! Grazie
Great job. I recognize many words my parents use to say. So funny. Thanks.
You omitted “FART” which I believe is:
scoreggia: f. (pl. -ge) (vulgar) fart. Upper class italian
Pirito: fart in the Sicilian dialect
You are all welcome. It is a language that should not be forgotten. I was raised on the west side of Buffalo, NY. My aunt once told me that when the Sicilian Italians moved into the west side of Buffalo [1920’s] she said that the Irish moved to south Buffalo LOL, it is true.
Vinnie
This was a walk down memory lane for me! when I was a kid, I used to joke that there must be something about living closer to the Equator making you drop the endings off words. Southerners in the USA drop the “g” off anything ending in “ing”, and Southern Italians just drop the last letter off nearly anything. As others have pointed out, the letter “C” at the beginning of a word turns into a “G”. T’s and D’s seem to get interchanged often too. Makes it hard to learn proper Italian, because the voice recognition programs keep correcting me! Nice to know I am remembering it the way my grandparents said it.
My mom used to call my boyfriend “scualiabeep”. Any ideas of what that could mean?????
My grandma used to call me that . She would say mr. Shpillabeek. That’s how it sounded when she said it you probably have the spelling right.she would say it playfully not really sure what it means
Can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it is to have found this site. I’m 1st generation from Brooklyn NY, I grew up hearing these words and phrases every day. I still use them quite regularly 🙂
Wouldn’t know any other way…. As Carol Burnett sang, “thanks for the memories ”
Ralphie….
I am a 1st. & 2nd. generation Italian, depending on which parent I refer too. My mother wanted her children to be American first, so she would ask her brothers and sisters to please only speak English around the children. Of course my Grandfather who had to spend at least one month a year in America in order to keep his holdings, could not speak any English, so he got a pass. I thought my mother was cool at the time, but now as I look back a realize how much I missed not being able to speak Italian so I especially appreciate your work on these interpretations. I think I can tell you I recognize 95% of them.
I worked for two Italian Gentlemen who owned a riding stable in Brooklyn. They use a phrase “Mannagia get tu zong as I remember it. When I would ask what that meant they would say, since I was just a 10 year old kid, It means “Your toast is in the oven”. I’m still looking for the real meaning of that phrase.
Thank you again.
Gregory
Thanks for compiling these phrases to preserve our Italian-American cultural heritage. It’ll be interesting to see how many generations these phrases live on in North America, or will they get lost in the ‘broth’ of the melting pot?
-Janet
Great list .. ny dad’s favorite thing he
used to say when he got updet was “mannaggia dial” .. I neve knew exactly what he was saying , but i do now lol .. thanks!
[…] ancestry, thanks to my beloved maternal grandmother, but most of my day to day life was filled with Italian-American words and traditions.) During family gatherings we lifted our glasses to toast the occasion while everyone shouted […]
Everything is very open with a precise clarification of the challenges.
It was definitely informative. Your site is extremely helpful.
Many thanks for sharing!
I recently ran across an Italian whose last name is “Stucatz”. Does it mean something (other than a last name). It sounds familiar- like calling someone a “stucatz” would be something bad, but I may be thinking of another word.
OMG! I’d hate to have a last name like that. I’d definitely change it. It reminds me of the actor who played Frank Pentangeli in “The Godfather 2”, whose name was Michael V. Gazzo.
I have since found out what it means:-( Sorry, I really wasn’t trying to be vulgar.
My mother’s favorites were, Ti Potza schiatta, Potza yetta u sangue. There were others but can’t remember them right now.
LOL, my mother used to say that all the time too as well as ti potza schiatta la vasheeg( vescica – may your bladder burst) and potz yetta la cheed ( la aceto – may you vomit vinegar). They really had the most colorful curses. We were in Philadelphia.
I’m from Chicago and my mother’s family came from Naples. They used to use a word that I can’t find anywhere. I don’t know how to spell it properly in Italian, but it sounded like “meen-gya-roll”. If I remember correctly, it was used when someone did something stupid. And, my mother used to say, “fangool thea-de-mommeda”. I know what fangool means, but not the rest of it. Anyone hear these words?
Hi 🙂 I am Roman but my family is from the south. I am pretty sure that the second sentence is “fanculo mammeta” or “fanculo te e mammeta”, where “mammeta” means “your mother”.
The first part of “meen-gya-roll” sounds like “minchione” (“minchia” means dick in Sicily), which is basically the same as “coglione”.
Hope this is helpful! 😛
Very interesting page. I got here via Google as I’m trying to find out the meaning of some Sicilian/Italian slang or colloquial terms, which I assume are varying degrees of offensiveness. I heard these a lot from my adoptive mom, actually my paternal grandmother, while I was growing up in the 1950’s-1960s. She passed away in 1975. I think she was born in the US but her folks/siblings came over from Sicily late 1800’s-early 1900’s. They lived on the East Side of Cleveland, the “Woodland” area I think. She’d use these when she’d get mad at me or my brother, or at her husband. I still pretty much remember how she said them. I know d and t sounds can overlap, as well as b and p, and c and g. When I was young, I thought pasta was BOSS-ta! So where I have a G, may be a C, etc. Everyone I could ask is deceased, I’m gonna be 61 myself. So I’ll present them the way I remember them.
She would voice this all in one complete long senetnce: Go VAH-go vah-GAH, SCUDdy vah DAY-stah, BRUCE-t-cahDOANia, miz-diablo, voo-TAHN-noo-SHAKE-oo (might be “scutty”, day-stah = testa = head? Nuts in the head or dick head? I know diablo = devil, but not what the “miz” refers to. Shake-oo – shekoo? donkey? ass? I have a hunch go-vah-go-vah-gah may be a variant of vaffanculo?)
I got called a “horse’s KNOCK-you” plenty of times (prolly ass or penis?)
Lock-ah day VAIN-trah. (first part crazy, like in loco? I also seen laca (?) refer to milk and also maybe shellac or varnish? day is de? ventra? air? Also I think I seen it referring to stomach/belly/abdomen/lungs?)
If I asked where we are going and she was pissed, she’d say Buzzle la GAHNT. (Plaza or place of something?)
She has also said “rome-bo-TONE-oh” a couple of times, but if I’d repeat that one especially, she’s get mad and say “shut up, that is a really bad word”, so seems she didn’t use sexual terms, or did she?
Another she used to say sounded like “grah-NOOD-oo”, but I think I found “cornuto” on that one. That’s another she said was really bad, but I don’t see it being that bad since I found out, means more or less “bastard” in this sense? But then back then, guess “bastard” was bad.
I think I found GREASE-toe, Christ?
I remember sometimes she’s refer to the bathroom as the “buckhouse” which I found out meamt “back house/out house”. She did use to word “culu” and I remember it pronounced as cool-oo, not cool-oh. Crazy was POT-see.
I don’t have cable, so I don’t know if any of these were used on the Sopranos, LOL.
Thanks for any help!
So cool; a little jewel of a resource for Little Italy’s ‘Spanglish’. So awesome when people get down to brass tacks and get this on the Internet. It keeps these languages living. I took enough Italian in college to know the base of some of these phrases from “High” Italian, but the trench linguistics morphology you provide for the street Neapolitanese is both entertaining and invaluable. I needed just the right word in not quite mobspeak, just the right slang rendering of something Sicilian but not so sinister, for a certain type of idiot, and here I found it, the exact right word in no language but the one we collectively share. Fascinating stuff for anybody like me who just can’t get enough fun out of the words I already know. I think first gen’s (Italian, German, Mexican, any and all) keep English such a powerful living language because its the ragazzi, the ones who don’t speak either language so good (they don’t talk either so great neither), who create these pidgeon portmonteaus that fill in the crevices of precision in creating the exact word over time that no single language would have on its own.
My grandfather was from Naples and he would sing to his grandchildren the following song:
Chickery chick, chala chala, checkalaromi in the bananica, pollicowolica can’t you see, chickerchick is me” I supplied the punctuation and excuse my phonics. Has anyone else heard this tune or did my grandfather just make up some words just to entertain his grandchildren?.
My mom used to sing this to us as kids and then we used to sing it too.
CHECK OUT YOU TUBE FOR “TOP 40 HITS OF 1945 BY SAMMY KAYE…WORDS AND MUSIC…….HAVE FUN SINGING IT WITH YOUR KIDS ETC……….CIAO ANGELO STREET BRAT FROM THE BRONX NOW IS BOSTON.
“American Italian” perhaps is often even more apt than “Italian American” in describing this wonderful language of the immigrants and their children that we will do well to hold on to as an American cultural treasure. Our ancestors did not lack for colorful expressive phrases that squarely and succinctly hit their intended mark. Try “vedova bianca” (white widow) meaning a woman whose husband was alive but nowhere to be found so she was not entitled to wear a widow’s black. Although often unlettered yet still as a people how truly “civilized” by any fair measure they equally as often really were. It remains for us to preserve the sacred memory of this chapter of the American experience and not in the frequently misleading and exaggerated terms of television and film. Sites such as this can and will do just that.
My grandfather always said something like “male di cuah” when something was broken or not working. “It’s male di cuah.” Anyone else remember this or know what the last word was (I know “male di”)?
I learned the answer to my question: my Calabresi grandpa was saying (phonetic) “mal educad'” – badly educated – but he used it to mean something just didn’t work right, or was broken.
Male educat(o) means poorly brought up, i.e. rude, without manners. I think it was an ironic euphemism in place of real swear words. That is, words that a persona maleducata would use… Like when people say blessed such and such when they really mean cursed such and so.
Thank you. That makes sense, & it’s also very funny.
I just found this site. It’s an amazing compilation of words and phrases I grew up with.
I wish I could remember all the words my mother said to me in Italian the phrases were a little different then used here! To her I was lazy and alot of words you use here thank you for the translations I used to think what she was telling me in Italian that she would not repeat in English was just what SOME of the words are here you do not have them all but I get the picture! To me being a female I never lived up to her standards but ya know you cant even please family all the time! I am happily married retired these days and my husband has soothed and smoothed out my worriies and my emotions now about my Mother for over 43 years God Bless Him! No he is not full blood Italian American 2nd generation like me he is Scotch Irish! Just as much fun but a little more understanding! lol! btw my Italian Father (God Bless My Parents stayed and argued and yelled at each other for over 50 years!) would never say as much in Italian he always told me in English lol but a little more picturesque that I could understand ! Yes I dont think to them I was the best child but the more I tried to please them the bigger the hole I dug! Oh Well Whatcha Gonna Do? Or as Grandma would say “Whatcha want eggs in your beer?- lol sweetheart she was! Sorry to write so much but the phrases still echo in my head after all these years !
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oh btw thanks again for this site I have been wondering over 60 years what the words were that Mother used now at least I know some! This site I would rate excelllent! You have done a fabulous job in translation of all the Italian Slang ! I do appreciate it thank you so very much! I give you a 10 plus and more then excellent rating! sincerely yours
Jeanne-are you my long-lost cousin from Waterbury,ct?? paul nap.
A lot of thought and heart have gone into this website congratulations .
When I hear southern dialect spoken I feel it in the heart and in my memory. Unfortunately when I hear proper Italian spoken I feel nothing.
I am 50 and I am first generation Australian from calabrese migrants parents which there is loads of in Australia especially in Sydney . Maria Comito xxx
I get emails from this site to my inbox, but when I click on it, it takes me to the beginning of this page. Is there any way to go directly to the reply?
Grazie !!! I have spent many hours thru the years trying to find the words and phrases I heard as a kid . You filled in some blanks … and the comments filled in some more !!! I have sent this to many of my goombas that will love it !!!
May I suggest that an alternate pronunciation for provolone (especially auricchio) would be ‘Bruva lune’. That’s the way my Dad (Elmont, LI by way of Lower Manhattan) pronounced it and the only way my brother and I know how to say it
There are many instances where southern Italian dialects substitute the sound [b] for [p] and [d] for [t], in addition to the vowel [u] for [o]. So your phonetic perception is quite accurate.
My own perception of what my Calabrese parents were saying was something akin to ‘pruvulun(e)’ (official Italian ‘provolone’).
I recently visited Italy and it warmed my heart to hear some southern Italians speaking to each other in my parents’ tongue.
They tell me that the dialects are dying out, and that everyone studies official Italian today, and that it is inappropriate to use a dialect with a total stranger. But I found it delightful to hear Calabrese spoken in Italy among family and friends. Due to local influences, the dialects spoken by immigrants to North America have evolved quite differently from the original Calabrese dialects in southern Italy. My relatives always got a good laugh when I repeated words my own parents used to say in southern Ontario –words that never caught on in southern Italy. For example – “gar-bi-che” (for “garbage”) yard-a (for “yard”) and “bassa-men-to” for “basement”)
Even though your relatives were Calabrese, it seems the pronunciations are the same as my family from Naples & Sorrento. Provolone was Pruvalone , basil Basanicol. I hope this dialect doesn’t die out. IF I ever get to go to Italy, it’s probably all I would relate to.
Anyone ever hear the word “spusada”? Just spelling it how it sounds.
My best guess is that this is a variation of the official Italian “sposata” which refers to the marital status of a female. For a male that would be “sposato”.
It is common in southern Italy for the vowel “o” to be replaced by “u” and for the consonant “t” to be replaced by a “d”.
“Spusdada” however spelled and whatever its literal translation is not usually intended or meant as a descriptive compliment by any means. “Half asleep”…”out of it”…”undone”…”confused”…”totally unaware of what is going on around him/her”…”not all together”……..perhaps begin to approach in American English how that term is sometimes used in describing a particular person.
The original post mentioned “spusada” whereas you are referring to the phonetic pronunciation “spusdada” (variation of official Italian “spostata”). The two words are different in pronuncation and meaning in both official Italian and in southern Italian dialects. It is common in southern Italian dialects to replace the vowel [o] with [u] and the consonant [t] with [d]. Hence the word which you are referring to is most likely a variation of the official Italian ‘spostata’ which means exactly what you said in your post. However, the absence of a [d] or a [t] after the first poster’s second [s] (check his spelling of “spusada” versus your “spusdada”) leads to me to believe that the corresponding word in official Italian is in fact “sposata” (married status of a female, for example on an Italian passport.)
Maybe the Latin root for the English word, “spouse”?
After a little research in Garzanti’s Italian Thesarus and commensurate with Mark’s explanation of “o” sometimes becoming “u” and “t” becoming “d” south of Rome I believe that in “spusada” we are likely dealing with a variant of the Italian ” spossato” indicating a now weak or spent person….lacking in vigor..In the context I have heard what sounds something like that used that would be about right….”all worn out” might be another way to state the case in American English.
My grandmother was from a village near Naples……..she used to say ,when ever one of us spoke too loud with the Windows open ” basteched”
And other one she used to say was ” gi de mort” ???????
This is just a guess, but your comment reminds me of two words I heard frequently as a kid in Southern Ontario from my Calabrese parents. “Basta” means “enough (already)”, and your phonetic writing “ched” reminds me of “cheet-o’ meaning “be quiet already”. So basta and chitto (a variation of “zitto” in official Italian are logically combined into one expression.
“Basta e “Chito” – “Enough chatter already – and be quiet”. Remember that [t] in official Italian is often replaced by the sound [d]. Hence your recollection of “ched” which I think represents ‘zitto’ in Italian with the final vowel omiited (zitto > chitto > chid(o), which you have represented as ‘ched’.
When we got too loud, my dad would say, with a rising inflection (and some frustration), “Stai zitto!”
“Spusdada” however spelled and whatever its literal translation is not usually intended or meant as a descriptive compliment by any means. “Half asleep”…”out of it”…”undone”…”confused”…”totally unaware of what is going on around him/her”…”not all together”……..perhaps begin to approach in American English how that term is sometimes used in describing a particular person.
Mike – August 3, 2014 at 2:39 PM
Are you sure you’re not confusing this with, “stunad”, meaning out of it, dazed?
I am inclined to agree with both of your posts. I haven’t researched it but clearly there is some connection between the English “spouse” (probably from Latin at some point) and the Italian word “sposata” (“married female”). In many southern Italian dialects the vowel [o] is replaced by [u], so it makes perfect sense for there to be a connection between “sposata” and “spusada”. Another post comments on the Italian dialect word “spusdada”, but other than sounding similar has no connection at all that I can see with the term “spusada”.
On the other hand “spusdada” does look like it has a connection with another Italian word “spostata” (Remember [t] frequently becomes [d] and the vowel sound [o] frequently becomes [u] in dialect). This leads me to believe that the case for making a connection between “spusdada” and “spostata” is much stronger than assuming that “spusdada” and ‘spusada’ are referring to the same thing. Official Italian spostata > spustata > spusdada (southern Ital. dialect). However, spusada, which is what the first post was all about, evolves from official Italian “sposata” > spusata > spusada (Ital. dialect). Just the thoughts of someone who grew up speaking dialect first, and later learned the official Italian (Florentine) at university.
I am inclined to agree with Karen. The poster’s description is more appropriately linked to the official Italian word “stonato’ which has probably evolved into Italian dialect along the line of stonato > stunatu > stunadu > stunad (Ital. dialect).
There is no connection at all that I can see with “spostata” (Ital.) or its variation in Ital. dialect “spusdada”.
“Stunad”…or “stonato is still heard very very frequently and is used as the equivalent of our American English term “stoned”..meaning as you correctly indicate “out of it”…or “dazed”. The other term “spusdada” or “spustato” encountered much less frequently and in the context spoken (referring to a spouse) seemed to mean as indicated…basically “out of it”…The term sounds phonetically something like “scustamata” (“itch”…”pestlike” but that was not the meaning intended to be conveyed.
My grandma used to say shacod (written how it sounded) for something that was a mess.she was napolitan from avellino.yours is very similar I guess the sound changes slightly from town to town.
Thank you for this. I remember a lot of these. It’s fun to compare these with my knowledge of book italian.
I’m looking for one other phrase, something my grandfather said when he was given food that he thought lacked salt or was too bland. It’s something like “scia bid'” or maybe “scia vid” (b’s and v’s tend to sound similar). Maybe something slang about “the wake of life?”
Belle cose 🙂
This is just a hunch, but I believe the word you heard was most likely a version of the official Italian word “dissapita” (something bland and unappealing). My late father (who liked salt more than the rest of us) would complain by labelling something “dissapita” (not enough salt). Based on the context you described, the possible omission of the first and last unaccented syllables, and the tendency to replace [p] with [b], and [t] with [d], it is quite possible that your grandfather was saying “dissapita” in his own tongue. dissapita> sapit(a) > sabida > sabid.
Sciabo/sciaba = bland.. In particular without salt.
Anyone know what the word “camma-nooch” means in “The Godfather”? It was when Sonny was in his father’s study and all the rest came in and he greeted them with that word. Also, in “Godfather II”, the young Tessio when bringing the young Vito to the fancy house and couldn’t find the key says to Vito, “Ming-ya” and that is something that was said in my home many times only it sounded more like “ming-ya-roll”. Anyone have a clue?
“”Camma-nooch” could be a diminutive of the male form of the name ” Carmen” or “Carmine” used in familiar friendly expression upon greeting especially. My barber is named “Carmine” and upon entering his shop many customers (those of Italian origin and otherwise, so well established it is as an “Italian-Americanism”) hail him as “Camma-nooch” (“good little Carmine” perhaps) rather than “Carmine”.
Your “mingya” could well be “minchia” or “Wow !”, an expression of surprise and impression, with all that implies. Somehow in any case, rightly or wrongly, it became my own belief that this was not a expression usually used in polite speech.
Yes, It’s probably Carminuccio, which is a diminutive or nickname for Carmine.
Also remember some of those actors were not Italians and they were trying to speak proper New York Napuledan. Not necessarily the most accurate source, these movies, you know.
Sister Terese, here’s your answer. It’s not “canmma-nooch” that Sonny says, speaking directly to Tom Hagen (although others may have been entering at the time). Sonny calls Tom Hagan “Tom-a-nooch” before Sonny starts talking about the button-men he has on the street. Anyway, Italians add the suffix “anooch” onto the end of a person’s name, just for fun, such as Bob-a-nooch (Tom and Bob are best for it, but anooch can be put after any name, usually a male’s). Then the person is addressed by it as he enters the room… “Bob-a-nooch!” That’s what’s going on in that scene from The Godfather.
It’s a fun way to address someone you like…. it shows affection.
[…] American Italian: Dictionary | American Italian – I grew up in South Philly and was 1st generation American. My mom, dad, and friends rarely spoke proper Italian, but spoke a combination of slang, dialect, corrupted …… […]
I love this list for the pleasure it gives my Bronx-Italian husband out here in the Wild West. And I have a candidate for entry into the list: “frudalooms.” Turns out that this was the kind of underwear they all bought back in the day–Fruit of the Loom.
This is a wonderful forum, thank you. My mother’s parents were from Salemi in Trapani, Sicilia, and we grew up (in Boston) hearing many of these words. I haven’t yet read every word in the comments but I will, when I have time.
We grew up hearing “bedda matri mia,” not “mamma mia.” I know now that this was a leftover from Arabic, a Sicilian dialect thing. Anyone else grow up hearing this?
I have a few questions: the only word I heard for female genitals was “culi”–I assume they were just saying “the holes down there,” like “culo.” Anyone else grew up with that?
Also, Nonnie used to say a little prayer or rhyme when there was a big thunderstorm. Anyone know what that was?
And her daughters would say a prayer for lost things to St. Anthony, a rhyme in English that I assume was a translation of some similar prayer in Sicilian. Anyone know anything about that?
Lastly, is there a Sicilian word for “bastard”? I don’t mean “bastardo”–I mean something more literal, something to describe an illegitimate child whose parents are unknown. And is there a word for “adopted” or “adoption”?
Thank you for anything you can tell me–I am writing a chapter of a book, thinking about these things. Will credit this site for the help.
Ciao Linda: I’m originally for East Boston. My family was Avellinese. See my website, mrsdrinkwater.com; also my article in wetheitalians.com.
I also write travel stories.
Best wishes,
Laura
My grandparents settled in the North Bronx. I grew up in North Jersey This was the “Italian” I heard on the street. Thanks for putting this together.
One thing I was hoping to find on the list but didn’t, was something that my grandmother always used to say when she was fed up with something and I guess it would be the equivalent of “for Pete”s sake” or “for crying out loud” in English and that was “Machidente” or if she was really mad just “MA(h)” anyone know how to spell it correctly? I can’t find it anyone on the web.
“Accidenti!”
My MIL used to say “Accipicchia!”, which was retained to be a milder, more genteel, exclamation. 🙂
how do you say uncle frank in the neapolitan dialect?????
I would think ” Zi Francesc” leaving off the o in zio (uncle) and the o in Francesco
In the Napolidan language they dislike using word endings to denote gender.
When I was a boy we had an old lady relative all the adults called Ozzi. I thought
her name was the American Ozzi. But it was “a Zi” they were saying “the Aunt”.
In Italian: la Zia. Also they never put the gender in both words, they just use the article. They never say la it’s always just a. Similarly for the uncle they say
“u Zi”. U instead of il. So uncle Frank would be u Zi Franc without the o
For a deeper Neapolitan dialect, I’d say Zi France’…hard accent on the “e”.
Laura Bellusci
Boston
Yes, probably Zi Francesc.
I have another question- know this isn’t the right place to post it, but how and where on this page do I start a new comment or question? This site starts at the very beginning of the dictionary, and makes me scroll down through the entire comments section. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.
I have another question- know this isn’t the right place to post it, but how and where on this page do I start a new comment or question? This site starts at the very beginning of the dictionary, and makes me scroll down through the entire comments section. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.
My aunt who lived in Staten Island ny was named michelina .we would call her aunt zizi margie .the older generation in my family would call her just zizi. “Where’s zizi today”.i always thought growing up that zizi Margie was her name.
I’m writing a paper for a linguistic anthropology class about my family’s linguistic features and the lexicon on this page is helping me tremendously! There are two words I can’t seem to find anywhere in the depths of the mighty internet. Of course I do not know the “true” spellings so I will try my best. First is something like “ahge” [AHJH] use to describe the feeling of being full (especially in your chest and throat) after eating greasy food. The second is something like “metsagetha!” (maybe “medsagetha”) used to express disbelief (usually as a listeners response to hearing a wild story).
Anyone recognize either one?!
1. ACIDO–AH-CHEE-DOE=ACID STOMACH
2. MEZZA VERITA–MEH-ZA–VEH-REE-TA=HALF TRUTH
HOPE THIS ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION. CIAO-CHEE-OW=GOODBY-HELLO—SHORT FOR CE VEDIAMO=CHE-VEH-DEE-AHMO
AGITA (n): common usage for upset/stressful stomach problem.. AGITARE means to agitate. To say: I’ve got the AGITA means all the troubles are hitting the gut.
Ci vediamo (see you later…)
Laura
I offer another possibility to your question about disbelief which is “HALF TRUTH” =META DI DETTA–MEHTAH-DEE-DEHTAH, which sounds similar to what you heard CIAO!
Correct my second possibility which would be “HALF SAID” = META DI DETTA. Sorry about that goof. CIAO!
My family said ah jh na. To mean stomic pains and food coming back up
My family moved from Philly around 1900 to CT. They used to pronounce it ag ah da.
I was recommended this web site through my cousin. I’m no longer certain whether this post is written by way of
him as nobody else realize such distinct about my trouble.
You’re wonderful! Thank you!
The list and comments just made my day! Thanks to each of you who contributed. I too miss all the sounds, aromas, tastes, hugs and love when growing up near an Italian kitchen. 1st Gen Italian from Providence, RI
My great-grandmother and grandmother used to say something right before a sentence. It sounded sort of like “em-bah” or “bah”. Sort of like, “Em-Bah. What do you want for dinner?” In the movie “The Godfather”, when Sollozzo meets with Don Corleone the first time, he makes the same sound. Anyone know what that means?
Please update to my new address: laurajbell526@gmail.com
Grazie, Laura
AND WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR DINNER? =
E BENE, CHE COSA VUOI PER CENA?
I need some help, please!
There’s a funny poem my dad used to say, but I’m missing part of it: “Una volta c’era una che mangavi pane pruna, e una volta” (can’t remember – but it ended with) “e cacava.” I need the missing part, and also a translation.
Also, he used to say, “The big fish eats the little fish.” I can find lots of translations online, but not in dialect.
His mom was Calabrese.
Many thanks,
Lisa B.
Ok, got it! Big thanks to Aunt Connie and nephew Zach.
Una volta cherre uno Once upon a time there was one
che mangava pane e prune who was eating bread and prunes
le ose se cudava. and he would swallow the pits.
E i calzi ce cacave. He shit his pants.
Che si dici? Hey, what’s up?
E sardi se mangiano i licci. Well, the big fish eat the little fish.
Words I heard my bruzese father say:
Tuto fa-shad…… all messed up
Shun-gad ….. a real low life
Mort de da fam…. my ex brother in law !
Gumba….. like family
paes…. the village
bas a na gol….. basil
scadol……. escarole
stata zeet…… shut up
From my Calabress grandmother….. she said “a bizz” for pizza
I didn’t hear all of the words that you did, but some of them like “gumba”, “basanagol”, “scadol”, and “statazeet”. One word that no one here seems to be familiar was “jumba-lone”. In my grandmother’s tongue, it meant huge.
I married into a Sicilian family in CT and recognize lots of words on the list. It’s funny that I now use fugazi rather than any English equivalent – it just works better. One thing my husband and I say that we don’t know the true meaning of is “fungi kanoobalees” (phoentic). I always thought it meant “nothing” like the Italian word for mushrooms. We use it a lot because it’s fun to say. But I said it in front of my mother in law once and she laughed so hard she couldn’t even tell me what it really meant. She just said my husband used it wrong all these years. Hmm…
If you find mistakes in the spelling it is because every city in Southern Italy has its own dialect, so each person would bring a different dialect on their way to the US. There are no ‘standard’ or unique ways to spell, etc. Second, each person had a different influence from English, and that also makes it different, with the result that the dialect spoken in the US obviously differs in some things with the same dialect spoken in Southern Italy.
My Dad used to have a saying and im trying to get spelling. He said it was blood of my blood which is Sangue Del Mio Sangue. But the words he used (Forgive Spelling) was Sanguemi sanutsumi sanguemi. does anyone know what the sayingis and how it is really spelled??
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Yo, this is the best. Me and my buddies here in South Philly are always talkin bout these here things and this lines up all kinds of stuff. My Mother, Father and Grandparents, uncles and aunts allsaid these here things. It was a real blast from the past. Thanks a lot.
My family was Calabrezz. They used to say. Im gonna try to spell it out like you did. “Ar jun a” stomic pain like in GERD time to take tums lol
Rhode island.
“Agita” ? Heartburn- Napolitan.
Very cool. My mom is 2nd generation Italian. She uses a lot of these words and Yiddish since she is from Brooklyn. She didn’t know that many of them weren’t standard English until she moved. I could see that as many of the words don’t have a precise translation like scooch or stunad (the later erupts out my Midwestern mouth driving).
I work with a gal whose family is Italian-American (makes a great Feast of the Seven Fishes, but I digress). Anyway, we’ll be at work and something will fall for no reason, or we’ll be looking for something that the previous shift misplaced and the gal will blame the (phonetic spelling) “marangeen”. (Sounds like “madangeen”). She says her grandma told her it means, “the man who was not there”, like maybe a poltergeist. Anybody ever hear that word, maybe know the dialect, I’m intrigued.
Alot of Gabbagul was taken from American and italianized. Possible from “man done gone” One possibility.
Just a guess – your word could possible be a variation of the Italian “malandrino” which translates in English to wicked…scoundrel…evil-one…etc. It is more or less the same in Spanish and French. American Italian expressions sometimes are not always true to an Italian original- not even to an original dialectical Italian root…sometimes it is in the hearer rather than the words and then it gets repeated to take on a new life of its own…. The very well known “baccaous” illustrates…indicating “back house” or “out house”….not any Continental Italian root to that….purely a creative American Italian expression born of necessity. “Malandrin…” seems to fit the situations you describe.
you’re correct Mike, TWO WORDS = MAL (evil) LADRINO (thief)
EVIL THIEF………..Check out Lou Monte’s “Pepino the Italian Mouse”
La Mal Ladrino who steals the cheese.
“Vivere Bene, Ridere Spesso, e l’Ammore Con Tutto Il Cuore”
Live Well, Laugh Often, and Love with all your heart”
Mike, I think you nailed it — thanks!
Firsr looked up poltergeist – presenza demonica – no correlarion there. Then I saw “gandeen” – in the basement.Possible “but/hand in the basement”?
This is awesome, like a blast from the past… miss my italian relatives, all long gone now. Just the memory of laughter & Italian/American phrases like these. I know there’s so much more, please continue to add to this page. I’ve shared it with my sisters, they love it!!!!m
My grandparents from bari, pronounced biscotti as vishcooth?.I’m trying to spell it the way it sounds..lol
I was raised in an Italian family (Naples & Sorrento) and my grandmother made them. I never heard the word “biscotti” til I was in my 40’s!!! Grandma called them, “Anisette Cookies”, even though some were almond flavor and some were Anisette. Other relatives of mine (Sicily) pronounce it, “bishcoati”.
My grandmothers were from Sicily and Calabria. I never heard the word biscotti. It was homemade, and it was called Almond Toast or Anise Toast. Interestingly, my husband, Russian Jew, grew up with the same treat, and it was called Mandelbrot—Almond Bread.
I really enjoyed this list. My mother was 100% Sicilian and she used many of these words. I wonder how many of the Sicilian words are influenced by the ethnic history of Sicily. Being an American, I had always referred to myself as “Italian” until an Italian from Northern Italy told me Sicily had a very different history than Italy. He made an analogy to Puerto Rico becoming part of America, but had a distinct history. I took a DNA test and was surprised to learn that most Sicilians (including myself) have significant Middle Eastern, Spanish, Greek & N African DNA. It makes sense as Sicily is closer to Tunisia than Rome, 3 hours via boat.The Sicilian language is considered an actual language, not dialect, by linguists.
That’s strange- because my Sicilian relatives are real light- with blue -green eyes. My relatives from Naples are dark. Was your DNA test done through Ancestry.com?
Hi Karen– Sorry did not see your message until now a year later in 2016! Yes, did an ancestry and family tree test. My DNA mix is actually the norm for sicily and I also have blue eyes! My mother (both parents sicilian) had brown eyes, fair skin & dark hair. Her mother had red hair and brown eyes. Her grandmother was even blond and blue eyed. I am told that is from the norman influence. Read about the history of Sicily. It is very distinct from Italy. Italy was unified and sicily incorporated in 1860. It is autonomous but a territory of Italy. Ruled by many rulers due to being on the trade route and so close to Europe, African & the Middle East.
Sicily was also a Norman kingdom, Sicilians have viking blood. Neapolitans are often blonde and blue-eyed or even red headed very often, too. Italians are the descendents of Germanic (Indo-European) tribes ultimately, from the Ukraine, just like the Greeks, Germans, Slavs, Celts. The Etruscans were not Indo-Europeans, like they Basques aren’t either. The there were the lombards (long-beards) who were more recent teutonic people up north. Italian, Russian, Persian, Hindi, English, Spanish, Gaelic, Swedish, all traceable back to the same language in the Ice Age…
Sicilian and other languages in Southern Italy are indeed languages. They are partly of Catalan origin and in Spain I.e. Catalonia called Alt Catalan. Normans and other Nordic types also spent time in that neck of the woods – ergo blonde hair, blue eyes
Loved reading these definitions and comments, as they reminded me so much of my Italian (Naples) family when I was growing up in Rhode Island! My grandmother used to tease me with a phrase that sounded like “la giamberatta e bet” which she said was “I’m going to teach you then I will lose you” (get married, move away?) Does anyone know the Italian phrase?
Thank you soooo much for this. Many of these words were used by my mother. However, some, I never knew exactly what they meant. My grandparents were Calabrese. My mother used to say one that I still cannot find. I sounded like (fah -vote) If anyone can please tell me what the real word(s) are and what it means I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
Well…”fa vota” literally would be “go vote” which is a relatively polite way of saying …”blow off..get lost or just go away”…something like ” va Napoli”…go to Naples” rather than go to H-. These are relatively polite terms because there is another phrase of the street that comes very close in sound to “fa vota” and is meant to be much less polite.
Thanks Mike!!
Chao’ This is great. Growing up in Bensonhurst, 2nd generation Italian this was correct Italian dialect to us. I still use all these words and they have been passed to my adult children. I really never knew it was slang until I was questioned on spelling of certain words. Thank you for your list and for all the Italian-American people who continue to utilize this way of speaking.
saluta.
Camille
My grandmother (Brooklyn from Caserta, near Naples) used to refer to children as ‘quierdooday’ (phonetically) and not the standard Italian ‘bambino’. A reference on another Italian dialect site that says one word used in the Naples are for children is ‘quartaro’ which might be morphed to ‘quierdooday’. Does anyone know?
your Grandmother was almost certainly making reference to “kids” (i.e. young goats) just as children are sometimes so called in English. What you heard is likely derived from the Italian or Neapolitan word for the same.
My grandmother used the word ‘ashpeta’ (phonetic) for ‘wait’. It doesn’t match the standard translation – Does anyone know what Italian word it comes from?
That is an easy one- the root word is “aspettare”…the Italian verb “to wait”.
Hi Ro– My mother whose parents came from Sicily in the 1920’s used to say aspetta (could sound like ashpeta) minuta. It meant wait a minute in Sicilian. She also used to say ammunini (among many other Sicilian words) which meant come with me or let’s go. The Italian verb would be Andare and Andiamo for Let’s go.
Ashpeta comes from aspettare which among other things also means wait or expect.
Baccalà – Salted Cod Fish
My grandfather born in 1903 in a mountain village of Campania/Naples, came to America when he was 9 years old. He had blue eyes and blonde hair. His mother, who died soon after his birth, also had blue eyes and blonde hair. Many Italians from the mainland did not consider Sicilians as real Italians. I think it might have been because Sicily was, at one time, almost like a penal colony. I may be mistaken about that, but that is what my grandfather used to tell me.
No, don’t believe it. Never anything like a penal colony. Sicily was always very fertile and the signori, just like in Naples were very well-off. In the 19th and early 20th century they were sort of like Italy’s Texas oil barrons. Check out the Gattopardo (OK, it’s Lampedusa, but gives an idea). Oh, and Sicily was, like Naples, part of (classical) Greece for centuries. Pythagoras was from Syracuse, for example. The arguably best preserved Greek temple anywhere is one converted into a cathedral in Syracuse. And Paestum and Agrigento have better Greek ruins than anywhere after the Acropolis.
My family still uses many of these words, mostly because there aren’t English equivalents. My grandmother used to say (phonetically): Due sonno so betch, a tre non ghareeve: It meant two is too much and three won’t reach, which was her way of saying something didn’t make sense.
Anyone ever hear of Schreetz? That’s the spatter that happens when you’re frying bacon.
My grandmother was 2nd generation Sicilian-American. She used to say a word I can’t find anywhere – I’m beginning to think it was made up or wrong!
She would call people who drank too much gigatoon. Any thoughts?
She didn’t make it up. My grandparents were from Calabria, and they called a drunk a “chi-ca-toon.” I’m sure it’s the same word, but what it stems from, I have no idea.
I so enjoyed reading through this! My grandparents were all legal immigrants of Sicily and Bari, Italy. What a fantastic, colorful and memorable childhood I had! I remember almost all the words and phrases on your list and occasionally use some of them still! By the way, thank you for your pronunciation of them as well. It’s like nails on a chalk board when I hear people say man-i-cot-i, or bis-cot-i, rick-cotta, or pros-cute-oh. I can go on but you obviously understand what I’m saying. Ca-peesh?!
Does anyone know the Gabbagul term for “behind”? Or “butt”? Is “Culo” the accepted (not Gabbagul) word? And also the color “pink”? Thanks.
My grandma used to say when I was little and going to the bathroom “did you wipe your ghoulee” or if I was being a pain in the ass she would call me “pain in ghoul “. Ghoul,culo ,Cooley all mean ass to me. She was from Naples. Avellino to be more precise. Miss her every minute of every day.
My grandma and mother used to call it “cooley”, too. My grandmother was Calabrezzi and my grandfather was Neopolitan. My grandfather used to call me a big “jumbalone” when I was a little kid. Never knew what that meant. When my mother used to get really po’d, she’d say something like this: “Fungool tha-ya de momeda”. I know what the first part means, but never figured out the last part. Anyone have any clue?
My grandpa always pronounces it “cooloo.” I have no idea if this is a standard Gabbagul word or if it’s just because he never learned to speak Italian.
Culo means butt
I too can confirm that in the southern or Calabrian dialect I heard the pronunciation that you described as “cooloo”. That was not a mistake, but a pattern found in many southern Italian dialects, where over time, the pronunciation of the vowel shifted one degree. So we can observe frequent vowel shifting over time from [o] to [u]
example: Edoardo became Eduardo or culo became culu.
Other examples of this vowel shifting: [e] to [i] trecento became tricintu;
It is important to remember that the dialects were typically handed down orally from one generation to another, as they have been since Roman times. As a result they were dynamic languages more subject to changes over time. The classical latin which was spoken by the elites and the educated, evolved less slowly. Today the official language of Italian republic was once the dialect of Florentine raised to national status.
So many of the comparisons here to standard Italian are really comparisons between two different dialects. Each word has a history and there is no reason why a word in 2017 should have a counterpart in two dialects, especially if those words evolved from a different source. For example, in the Florentine dialect the word for mouse is “topo”. In some southern Italian dialects it is pronounced “sudice”. In the Florentine dialect (now official Italian), the word for table is “tavola”. In parts of southern Italy we find the word “buffetta”. (kind of similar to our English word buffet, likely of French origin). Recall that French domination of southern Italy lasted a long time and resulted in the introduction of new words that were not part of the lexicon of the Florentine dialect.
We always called it a “cooloo.”
My mom’s parents were born in Sicily, and my dad’s mother in Calabria (his father from the north, near Treviso).
My grandmother was from Abbruza and then settled in Milford, MA. She called it a coolie.
What about BEE-shi or the long form BEE-sho-LEEN? Lol I didn’t even know the real name till i was way too old.
Might you be referring to the chamber pot that was standard night time household equipment in the days before indoor bathrooms ?
Yes I remember grandma told us about the pissa pot.when we had no money she used to say we don’t have a pot to piss in….still dont
I have been trying to find out for years how to spell the Italian (most likely Italian-American slang) word that sounds phonetically like “Badjagaloop” and what the English translation is. It’s usually used in the context of calling someone an idiot or something similar and was in common usage in Northern New Jersey in the 1970s-1990s (probably still is, but I don’t live there anymore so I couldn’t really say. ) There was even a restaurant by that name, but of course it was spelled phonetically “Bajagaloops” and was not a real Italian restaurant. I think it was a fast food place. I don’t know if this thread/site is still active or open, but if so, can anyone shed some light on this for me?
Ok, here’s one for the books. What does (phonetically spelled) “ming-ya-roll” mean? I heard it on Godfather II when a young Clemenza took a young Vito to a house to get a rug. When Clemenza discovered there wasn’t a key under the rung, he said, “Ming-ya”. Anyone have a clue what this means? BTW, my Italian roots are from Chicago.
meeng ya, not exactly sure but when ever I heard it used it was like saying “I don’t believe it” or “what the heck”.
Never heard “ming-ya-roll” but a phrase we still use in my family is “meeng-ya-moda”, this refers to someone who tends to do things in a sloppy, lazy way.
eg. She’s a mingya moda
I don’t speak Italian so I don’t know what the words really mean but I have always assumed that the “moda” (pronounced mode-uh} is from the word “mode”, a way or method of doing somethong. So , meeng ya moda, a lazy way, might indicate that meengya suggests laziness or perhaps something unbelievably foolish.
I guess some of these words and phrases are just ways that Italian Americans used to hang on to their heritage. My grandmother’s family came from Calabria and my grandfather’s family came from Naples. Plus, you have the Chicago influence of other Italians so I think a lot of these words and phrases were influenced by the city in which these people lived. There are lots of recipes that are common to all Italians, yet my family made them very differently. In Chicago, you would never find a pizza with the cheese at the bottom of the pizza with the extras on top of the cheese. Pastafazool was made very differently in my family than some of the recipes I’ve seen. But, I do enjoy learning more and more about Italian people and their languages and traditions.
Ming ya is Managgia in Napolidans – something akin to GD it!!! or Doggone!!!!
Thanks, David! Yes, My mother and her family used to use that word a lot whenever they were frustrated. Sometimes, my Italian uncles would call me a “jumba-lone” when I was a kid. I’m not sure what it meant, but I know it was not a compliment!
Omg…these words are words I grew up with!!!!!! I love seeing these..i actually taught my kids and my relative from Italy said I wasn’t teaching him the right way!!!!!!
How about these:
woodza woo dza means a hole or place to keep extra money
bitacuse = cheapskate
manga tadia = one who eats too much
beva tadia = one who drinks too much
engora = oh no not again
coom asti you = how are you, half English
Thanks for this site, very cool
I’m a native Italian speaker. I find this very entertaining. I have heard many of these words used by Italian Americans. There are some words that are not literal translations. Grazie
Just wondering id anyone knew what guanda moss meant? I know this is not how it’s spelled.
“quante mosse”…literally translates to “how or so many movements ?” indicating a probable dramatic exaggeration of some sort either in response or reaction to some stimulus. In music the term “con tante mosse” is employed when it is time to play the music dramatically.
My Father used to say it to my Mother when she was arguing with him……….kind of makes sense now, LOL. Thanks..
My grandmother used to say (phonetic spelling) “Guanda belle!” Meaning “beautiful one” I think. It was beautiful something, for sure!
I remember that too……seems like my Father was saying, “How Dramatic” LOL
Anyone ever heard the term “ska-sha-BONG” to mean a jalopie or crappy car? My godfather in South Philadelphia used to say it.
“scasciata” I believe translates to “ruined” or “destroyed” or “broken down”… “scasciabanga” applied as you say to a “jalopie” could be an “American-Italian” word. Have also heard it unkindly applied to people…not nice !
My Dad used that too……….ruined, destroyed, messed up, etc.
English words for the Italian word schiacciare SCHIACCIARE =
cave crush jam mash overwhelm pinch press push down smash squash squeeze squelch swat
THE SLANG EXPRESSION “SCASHADE”COMES FROM THE VERB
SCHIACCIARE……………..
I have discussed this scacciabong with the owners of the restaurant we visit. They come from Campania. They say means a bonecrusher – schiacciare to press or crush and bong probably bones. In other words the car is a bone crusher cuz it bounces around so much.
Yep! And if you can get a hold of a copy of Fatso!. A movie with Dom Delouise you will hear it mentioned in there by Anne Bancroft “Ain’t these the keys to your schiash!
Yes! My Italian mom and grandma (Bronx, NY) use the term “ska-sha-Bong” in reference to crappy cars.
Interesting………………..thanks.
This is great, my Papa came from Sicily & and Mama’s family from Italy.
“You will learna to speaka English” Papa said:
” becausa you wasa borna here ” !
Never learned Proper Italian cause of the dialect speaking.
Now I am laughing over the memories of
la Familia expressiones & there spelling too.
Graci !
Love the Dictionary,brought a tear in the eye because my parents who are deceased are from R.I. and Ma.spoke this style of Italian. Reminds me of growing up in Italian house hold where are grandparents immigrated from southern Italy, Town called San Sossio in region Avelino. Have yet to make the trip,but on my bucket list. Also love reading all comments. Great job. Fred Demartino,ma.
Does anybody know why Italians leave the last syllable off of every word?
Hello Karen,
As I got older I discovered that the vowels at the end of the Italian words I heard when I was growing are not silent but should actually be pronounced. So, manicotti was just manicot, ravioli was just raviol and calamari just calimad. My theory is that immigrant Italians would drop the vowel in an attempt to Americanize the words. Does anyone know if this is correct?
That’s an easy one, to save time!!!! Lol.
In linguistics it is taught that unstressed vowels are frequently weakened or eliminated. Your questions relate to a spoken Italian dialect. However, I can assure you that (1) no, this is not an attempt to Americanize the words and (2) this tendency to truncate an unstressed vowel at the end of the word is not unique to any dialect. Also, you are comparing the written Italian (which is a static graphic representation) to a spoken dialect (which is a living dynamic language). Numerous examples exist across many languages and dialects of this tendency to truncate unstressed vowels, especially at the end of a word or syllable.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
My grandmother was from Abbruza and settled in Milford, MA. She called it a coolie.
LOL. It was known as a coolie in our family too
My grandmother was from Abbruza and also settled in Milford MA also – yup – it’s a coolie
could someone PLEASE help me with a saying my grandma used to say meaning ya right, i’ll believer it when I see it ( or tomorrow never comes) i know I am very very off on the spelling” mo mo caw gaw” . im wanting this for a tattoo my email address is mmsassie@yahoo.com
thank you
pizza shops Were a bunch associated with volunteers plus starting up a whole new system in our local community. Your website provided us useful details in order to work on. You could have performed any formidable job and our whole local community will be thankful to you.
Hi all. Reading through this thread has filled me with nostalgia!
Tell me, has anyone heard the (phonetically spelled, of course) “I’m gonna give you beata bania!” (with the “n” sounding like the Spanish ñ sound) which was playfully said by my grandma, great-grandma and others (not unique to my family) when jokingly threatening a spanking or whack if we were misbehaving? I can’t find anything on this or other similar (imagined) spellings. It was so funny. I’d love to know more about it.
How was beata pronounced like be – ata or as in English to beat?
Hi! It was pronounced “beet-ah-bahn-ya”. Both individuals who said this were from possibly Naples, Bari or Sicily.
I’m agonizing over this!
It’s a rug beater.
Knew them all. Ha ha. Loved this
This list is great!
This was an awesome site to visit as member of the Italian American Social Club of Waldwick New Jersey I recognize almost all of the words and have use them and still use some of them today even though I’m third generation American Italian – I’d love to contribute some more thoughts and an article I wrote about being Italian American and growing up in New Jersey
Favorite word as a kid growing up, my old man would say LA-SOO-YEE, telling my mom to leave him alone!
Awesome, really brings back memories of my early yoot when my dad would take us boys to get some abeetz at my coomba’s restaurant and then he would take us to the Italian American club but make us wait in the car. Never found what that place was all about back then, but now? Hmm! My dad would sometimes get on the phone in Italian with his relatives in Sicily. Was so neat. Thanks for the dictionary.
Lol!
Mortadell is “baloney” not sausage, at least on Long Island and anywhere I have been for that matter.
Very amusing!
My grandmother (who will be 104 in October!), was from Calabria. Many of the words/phrases on this list are familiar! But two I didn’t see:
1. Streaka fromagia = cheese grater.
2. Scala facia mia! (Always said out of exasperation.)
I can’t find the word WYUN pronounced WHY-OON anywhere. It is not in urban dictionary and Italian-American dictionary. It means goofy person (I believe). I come from the Anthracite coal region in PA any heard it all my life. I lived in North Jersey for awhile and have heard it there also. I am now retired in lower Alabama and never hear it here.
My father used these words all time. I thought he made them up. We grew up in Spokane and I was was around no one else that used them. This is a great resource as I would like to adopt them to pass on to my children.
As a kid in 1950’s New Jersey, my mom, a second generation Italian, would say I had a “magung” face when I was sad (or angry?). I may not have the sound of the word correct, but I had never heard the word since then, though I have searched the internet sources for american-italian slang. Does anyone recognize this word and description, or something like it?
I grew up in Mechanicville, NY in the late 50s and early 60s…. Both of my mom’s parents were right off of the boat, as they would say…and the words and phrases shown above were exactly how everyone spoke in that town at that time….it brings back fond memories!
Glad to see this thread is still active. Second generation Sicilian-American from from Caldwell in Essex County, New Jersey. I too wish I would have recorded my mother and grandmother talking the dialect on the phone.
I remember:
Bungaline = Clorox bleach
Sculabasta = colander
Bigatsu = dishtowel
Balita = dust pan
Gavedelle = oval shaped hard cookies with a slight topping of crushed nuts.
Strumbalad = mixed up person
Marva = a plant used for a tea that cured stomach aches
Scudada = a rash on your butt (it hurt real bad)
sugu= spaghetti sauce
My family used the term “mangia-cake,” which is a cake eater. It was used to refer to someone or something less than masculine. For example, a champagne brunch with fingertip sandwiches would be a mangia-cake party. We don’t want cucumber sandwiches, we want a sangweech! Also, a cousin married a non-Italian and he was forever greeted as “Hey, Mangia-cake!”
Anybody hear the word ‘dappanada’ growing up? The spelling is probably wrong but can someone tell me I’m not crazy?
My mom and grandparents always used to say what sounded like Yamma Jane whenever it was time to get going. I realize now that Yamma is short for Andiamo (‘iamo). Could Jane be a bastardized version of Gianni, as in let’s go, Johnny? I actually heard a bus driver on capri say this, and he pronouced it the same way.
I too have heard this, or a variation of this phrase. Here is my best guess – The underlying form in official Italian is likely “andiamoci” (let us go! – emphatic). In Italian pronouns can be appended to a verb. Remember that c before i and e is pronounced like the ch in Chile. Think of ciao (pronounced “chow”). The “Jane” that you thought you were hearing was likely the “ci” at the end (which is pronounced with a “ch” sound). If you keep repeating andiamoci over and over, focusing on what you hear rather than the what letters you see written you will find that it is not a big leap to think that the last part of the word sounded like “Jane”. Also, “ci” makes more sense here. There is no valid reason for inserting the English name “Jane” at the end of andiamo. Just my take on your interesting question.
My Sicilian grandparents arrived in 1901 and lived on E13 St., NYC 20 years later owned a house in the Bronx. Growing up in the Bronx in a three-family house with my Sicilian grandpa, parent’s aunts, uncles, cousins provides memories to last a lifetime. Our house house was always filled with people, half, of whom played the guitar, mandolin, piano, accordion, while the other half had beautiful operatic voices. – Privacy was as uncommon in our home, as was American food😊!
Xmas Eve was a feast for 40 people and the food was better than any restaurant could hope to serve. I remember “helping” my grandpa and uncle wrap the fig trees with tar paper to save them during the winter months and how he loved tending his garden. Figs were jarred and used to make delicious Xmas and Easter cookies! Christmas Eve was a traditional Sicilian feast (minus meat) was served, along with home made pizza!
Cjristmas Eve was filled with music and later we ate home made Sicilian Pizza and played cards. My grampa (b.1873) spoke very broken-English yet taught us how to play Scoppa, Brisk, and on Xmas eve we all played Italian Blackjack (for pennies), called Sette Mezzo, minus the 8,9 10’s. Scoppa and Briscolla are common, and have yet to find folks familiar with Sette Mezzo. If you have played this game, shout out😊
I remember waking up on Xmas Day and running downstairs with my cousins to eat left-over home made pizza! Quite a treat! – I still luv left-over pizza warmed in a frying pan! (BTW: If you have a RECIPE for St. Joseph’s Bread (Sicilian) made with anise seeds, please post.
While growing up in the Bronx, I never (fully) realized totality of the sacrifice made by those who left all behind to save their family and send money “home” to allow more to come to America and help family who were to old, frail or sick to make the voyage.
My Aunt shared so many of her experiences with us, especially her story of coming to America as a 7 year old and her amazement seeing tall buildings and paved streets! An indoor bathroom (shared with other families, was a treat! She always said: It was the American Dream for immigrants and the American Nightmare for others. Just imagine how who long it took to save for the voyage, and not knowing what was ahead without the luxury of Television, News, Weather Reports, Magazines, or Newspapers! Imagine never seeing a boat and then being packed like sardines in an old ship for weeks! They knew nothing (other than hearsay) of what was ahead, but were convinced a better life for their family kids was across the ocean. Grazie a tutti coloro che sono venuti prima di noi e non dimenticate mai da dove vengono!
– Happy to find this site and spend my day smiling!
Thanks for the nice story, I love to hear about these experiences. We played the same card game on Christmas and New Years eve but we called it seven and a half. I’ll be playing it with my grandchildren in the coming holidays. We played Brisco and Scoppa too and we learned all the tricky ways of cheating and signaling your partner too. Lots of fun and great memories.
For those who are referring to Sicilian words as “dialect” I urge you to do research about your ancestral history which is not taught in the US schools. So many are unaware in the US it is incredible. Sicily is very distinct from Italy. If you visit Italy and Sicily and talk to those who went to university you will learn alot. Think of it somewhat like Hawaii and the US in that Hawaii also has its own history different from mainland US. They were ruled by many different rulers prior to Italy unification which brought together diverse people in 1860. They have much less in common culturally and historically with Northern Europeans than with other mediterranean peoples. Linguists classify Sicilian as a language, not a dialect. You should be proud of your very interesting and diverse sicilian ancestry.
Also, so many people think the language their ancestors and relatives spoke was a dialect or an inferior version of “standard” Italian. The language of those in power is always seen as “standard”. My intentions are to make you aware that this is untrue. It may stem from the fact that Southern Italians and Sicilians, many whom were poor, uneducated and exploited by wealthy northern Italian land owners have a history of being highly discriminated in their own country as inferior. Malta is also close to mainland Italy and could be also part of Italy today as well if they were also conquered at the time, but was ruled by England in recent history and it is independent. Yet their ancestry and history is not the same as England. History is not static and the history of Sicily and southern Italy is very complex. Also, unification was not so peaceful either, Sicilians fought against many invaders and conquerors through the centuries, including when Italy was unified.
Hoping someone can help figure out what nonni was saying! Sounded something like “parc-a ma-zel-ea” usually said after someone was being stupid. As if it means “heaven help me” or “what’s with these idiots” or something along those lines. Any thoughts??
Maybe “Porca miseria.” Literally, “Miserable sow,” but really more like, “shit,” or, “dammit,” or a slap to the forehead with an eye roll. My gramma just said, “PorCA!”
You did a great job!! Most of the Italian American slang I learned from my mom. Her family was from the Naples area. My dad used mostly Italian curse words. His family is from abbruzzi. They both spoke Italian to each other, every damn day. Especially, when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. Many of the words my father used, you probably don’t want to put in your book, like moulon and yubadool!! one very important word to add is goulee! Another is caca!! Capece??
Thanks for this amazing resource! I don’t see “stunod” for idiot from stonato on your list. One of my favorites.
Nevermind, my bad, I found it!
As I read the dictionary and everyone’s comments about their families, I have the distinct impression that we all grew up in the same household. Where in fact the only common thing we have with each other is our families came from the Southern area of Italy, and came to America during a time frame of 50 years.
We have a very rich heritage, a culture of strong families, establishing a better life for each new generation.
My father use to say to me there are two types of people in this world, Italians and those who want to be.
David Tedeschi
Anyone hear “capo fresco” or “fresh head”? I believe it meant ditzy or stupid.
For capo fresco i came up with “fresh head” with google translate
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For capo fresco i came up with “fresh head” from google translate.
I grew up in Brooklyn and love this list! My Mother’s family was from Sicily, and my Father used to tell her she was a real “Sciacca Don” (in reference to the part of Sicily her family came from).
There was one thing my Father used to say when he got aggravated. It sounded like “GWOT-city-BEP”. Anybody ever hear this one, and have an idea what it means?
Steve, I believe Sciacca Don could either be “Sciacca Donna” or Sciaccadana both meaning from Sciacca(?) As for GWOT city BEP an Italian friend of mine has no idea. You gotta remember “Gabbagul” is more of an Italo-American dialect that has evolved over 100yrs. I have one more person to ask. Where did your father’s family come from?
It’s so cool that we’re keeping some bit of this language alive. I think I’m only either 3rd or 4th gen (great grandparents came over in their 20s and had my grandpa), but still hear (as well as use) these from all my family.
One I haven’t been able to find is something that sounds like “ma che di” in modern italian. It would be said as a greeting while pinching someone’s cheek. Anyone have an idea of what it could be? Family is from Campania/Avellino area if it helps.
Could be “check dice” or in Neapolitan it would sound phonetically more like “che deesh ? Which is to say” what do you have to say ?”
Che ma di ma di (if che is pronounced kay ) may also mean what of it? Depends on how he pronounced it and in what context.
Oh I totally didnt make that connection to dice. My grandpa was the only who could speak Neapolitan, so other family members dropping the ce from dice makes sense. In that case, it could be “what are you saying”. I’ll have to ask my grandma to see if that checks out. Thanks!
Also: che si dice ? phonetically in Neapolitan…..ch si desh ?…in English….what does you have to say for yourself…?
You may be referring to “ma certo”, meaning “but of course”. 🙂
Where I went to high school on Long Island, it was the same thing. Gumba Italian was the lingua Franca irrigardlass of national origen.
This was very helpful in researching words and phrases that my grandparents used.
Some of these are funny! I think many of them are from Sicilian and/or Calabrese dialects….very different from Napolitan’ dialect.
Love this! I think you forgot one though. Remember Aspetta? Meaning “wait” some of us say Aspett for short (ahh-spet-ah/ahh-spet).
There’s my 2 cents! Lol
Wonderful! Thank you so much for this effort as it helps to clarify for me so much of what I heard growing-up in my home and my Italian neighborhood in West Philadelphia in the 50s & 60s. Three of my grandparents, three uncles, an aunt and a few cousins were immigrants from Abruzzo. My paternal grandmother and her family were “gli stranieri”, immigrants from Provincia d’ Avellino in Campania (Neapolitans). Conversations in my childhood home were held in a cacophony of English, Italian, Abruzzese and Napuletano. My father and his comrades would migrate between English, Abruzzese and this fascinating dictionary listed above. Our neighborhood centered around our church and school and was settled mostly by the “mezzogiorno” immigrants from the southern regions and between 1900 and 1920. These words still ring in my ears from the voices of my grandparents, my parents, relatives, the shopkeepers, my old barber, the old folks on our porches and some of my classmates, recent post WWII immigrants. Vi ringrazare dal fondo del mio cuore.