Italy changes and the language adapts, tracing an identikit of our country. Little reassuring if a new syndrome assails Italians: Aporophobia, that is, “fear, repulsion towards the poor and in general of poverty”. This was reported by Zingarelli who welcomed this neologism in the new edition, branded 2026.
There are over 1000 the new words and new meanings that entered the famous vocabulary of the Italian language, published by Zanichelli. Voices that represent a mirror of society such as: friends, in journalistic language, “tendency to encourage friends and supporters in the concession of assignments or appointments, often at the expense of the merit”. The exact opposite of the Hombre Vertical, that is “morally inflexible man, who does not compromise neither he gives in blackmail”.
Gaslighting, on the other hand, is the “psychological manipulation aimed at making a person of their perceptions, memories or mental faculties doubt, with the aim of exercising total control over it”. The word derives from the title (Light Gas) of a theatrical work by the English writer P. Hamilton (1904-62), in which a husband tries to convince his wife to be crazy.
The Italian changes, as the places for the tendency to touristify change: “Change the urban and social fabric or the environmental structure of a location in order to attract tourists». Transforming it into “tourist factory”. Perhaps this is why Retromania is spreading: “attitude of nostalgia and passionate interest in the past or for what belongs to the past”, with consequent development of retrogaming, the “sector and practice of video games of the past, through original devices or emulators”.
The dictionary between its 145 thousand voices and the over 380 thousand meanings welcomes homosocial: “said of relationship between people of the same sex without love or sexual implications”. Term similar to Bromance: “Report of deep friendship or of strong understanding between men, without sentimental or sexual implications”.
Space between the pages of the vocabulary also for the Romanesque FRICCONTELLO, synonymous with “exciting; sparkling ». An evocative term is “bizona”, with a double meaning: «which is characterized by two areas or parts such as the bizon hob. Or the Bizona air conditioner, which sets two different temperatures on two different areas of an environment ». But he also recalls a historical fact: “In Germany between 1947 and 1949, a merger in a single area of occupation of the British and American sectors”.
From the world of sport they come: the cockpit (in football, spoon) and Brecca, in the jargon of tennis, “make a break, beat the opponent by tearing the service”. The expression “Rosso Ferrari” enters the examples of use of the word “red” to indicate “lively red color characteristic of the Ferrari racing cars”.
Many news of the new Zingarelli 2026, to be consulted perhaps by consuming a cicchetto – “in Veneto, tease (for example meatball, cod, salami, boiled egg, etc.) served with a glass of wine in the traditional bacari” – in a local cicccheteria, originally typically Venetian, where it is possible to consume appearance in accompaniment with wines or other alcoholic beverages “. They too welcomed in the Italian language together with the busiata, type of helical pasta based on durum wheat semolina, typical of western Sicily.