What does “languorino” mean in Italian?
Street food napoletano in giro per la città
A2 Italian listening practice · Standard Italian · Curated for beginners
Languore is a weak, empty feeling, including the hollow one in your stomach. Shrink it to languorino and it turns affectionate and specific: the mid-morning twinge that isn’t real hunger but definitely wants a snack. The phrase to keep is mi è venuto un languorino, “I’ve got a bit peckish” — the standard, entirely socially acceptable Italian reason for eating something between meals.
The -ino is doing the work: it makes the hunger small and forgivable, the way un caffettino or un’oretta soften whatever comes next. In this Naples street-food run the languorino arrives mid-morning and is answered with a pizza a portafoglio — pizza folded in four like a wallet, which Neapolitans have long also called a libretto, “like a little book,” because you eat it leafing through the folds.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Italian listening practice listening practice?
General Italian frequency
Spoken Italian frequency
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.