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Italian word of the day: 'Fannullone'

Jessica Phelan
Jessica Phelan - [email protected]
Italian word of the day: 'Fannullone'
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond"

Stop slacking off and learn this amusing term.

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Allow me to introduce you to my new favourite word: fannullone, or 'layabout'. 

È un gran fannullone come suo padre.
He's a complete layabout, like his dad.

Like our English term and the image it conjures of lounging lazily on a sofa, fannullone is wonderfully descriptive: it's made up of fare ('to do'), nulla ('nothing') and the suffix ~one, which denotes a large size.

In other words, it literally means 'big do-nothing'. 

It turns out that Italian has a string of a similarly evocative words for the same kind of person: there's perdigiorno, 'day waster', from perdere ('to lose') and giorno ('day'), as well as scansafatiche, 'effort dodger', from scansare ('to dodge') and fatica ('effort').

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Bear in mind that these words, like many compound nouns (nouns made up of two other words), are invariable. So it doesn't matter if you're talking about one day-waster or several, an effort-dodging man or woman, they'll always keep the same ending.

Siete delle perdigiorno.
You lot are slackers.

Lei è una scansafatiche.
She's a lazy bum.

Why does Italian have so many great words for people not doing much of anything? I couldn't possibly speculate.

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

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