Six Italian neologisms

People make the language. Hence, languages evolve with time. In Italian every year there is a certain number of new words – neologisms – that appear in the Italian language. Some of them are completely made up, while some others are inspired by words from other languages, especially English.

So, today, I’ll list six Italian neologisms.

Killeraggio

Killeraggio has obviously been created starting from the English word to kill. But what does it mean? It’s a noun that can have at least two meanings. It can indicate a murder that was carried out by a killer. Also, figuratively, it can indicate the act of repeatedly denigrating someone’s reputation. The easiest way to use it in a sentence is with the verb fare.

Example:

Non fate del killeraggio, non è una cosa carina

Do not denigrate someone’s reputation, it’s not a good thing

Smartabile

Smartabile is another word that has been created starting from the English word smart. It’s an adjective that indicates a job or an activity that, thanks to new technologies, can be done from anywhere in the world, remotely.

Example:

Il tuo lavoro è smartabile?

Can you do your job remotely?

Skillato

Skillato is another Italian neologism that was created from the English word skill. It means to be specialized, to have skills in a specific field. Sometimes you can see it used both informally and in business. However, it doesn’t seem to appear in any dictionary yet. So, it’s still preferable to use the Italian word specializzato.

Microondabile

This Italian neologism was created starting from the noun microonde – microwave. It’s an adjective and indicates that a container can be put in the microwave oven. A much longer expression with the same meaning that can be used in any context, which I personally prefer, is riscaldabile al microonde.

Ex: Secondo te questo contenitore è microondabile o no?

What do you say? Can I put this container in the microwave oven or not?

Camperizzare

Camperizzare comes from the word camper. It indicates the action of modifying a van, a car or another means of transport in order to transform it into a camper. Even if you can see this term used in some forums, it hasn’t made it into a dictionary yet.

Ex: Secondo te, quanto costerà camperizzare un furgone?

How much do you think it cost to transform a van into a camper?

Scivelox

The last neologism of today’s list is scivelox, composed of the word sci + velox. It’s a pretty recent neologism and indicates a device that detects skiers’ speed. It was recently added to some Italian ski slopes to prevent skiers from skiing too fast and cause accidents. However, scivelox doesn’t appear in any dictionary yet.

Ex: Hanno messo davvero uno scivelox?

Did they really put speed cameras on the ski slope?

Do you know some other Italian neologisms? Which ones?

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Credits

Original image by suju-foto