What does “vezzo” mean in Italian?

Vezzo is the word for a quirk you adopt to seem a certain way — an affectation or pose, more than a real conviction. Describing a youthful fashion as un po' un vezzo casts it as something tried on, a phase that may fade. The same word also just means a habit (often a bad one: il vezzo di mangiarsi le unghie, “the habit of biting one’s nails”), and in older, literary use it meant a charming grace or tender caress.

That spread isn’t random: vezzo comes from Latin vitium, “fault/vice” — making it a doublet of vizio, “vice.” From “fault” it drifted two ways: toward a (usually harmless) mannerism or quirk, and toward graceful, endearing charm — i vezzi di una donna. Read it from context: a put-on pose, an ingrained habit, or, in poetry, a pretty grace.