Who hasn’t at least once in their lives experienced the feeling of utter disappointment and existential despair that comes with opening a drink at the end of a hard day at work and finding it absolutely undrinkable?
Though the English language has no shortage of nouns for undrinkable drinks (swill, slop, bilge water, etc.), Italians also have a number of words suited to the occasion.
While crap (crap) and filth (filth) are valuable options, today’s word, ciofeca (pronunciation available here) is the more specific word you might want to use in this scenario.
ciofeca is generally used for any drink which tastes so bad it is undrinkable, especially bad coffee and bad wine.
Why are you making that face?
‘This coffee is a ciofeca…
Why are you making that face?
This coffee is swill…
I will never go back to that place. The wine we had last time was a ciofeca.
I’m not going back to that place. The wine we got last time was hogwash.
As for the word’s etymology, scholars have hypothesised that ciofeca might derive from the Arabic word ‘Shafaq’, which means ‘bad drink’, or from the Spanish ‘tiger nut’, the type of almond used to make syrup.
What’s certain is that the Italian version of the word first appeared in Naples and then spread to the rest of the peninsula over time.
It’s also widely believed that the ‘nationalisation’ of the noun happened largely thanks to legendary comedian Totò, who used the word ciofeca in his sketches and movies.
Nowadays, the word is used all over Italy and, in some instances, its scope has been extended to indicate anything of poor quality, not just drinks.
In these cases, ‘ciofeca’ might be translated into English as ‘rubbish’ or ‘garbage’.
They gave me a cordless vacuum cleaner for my birthday.
Oh, how is it?
It’s a bitch…
They got me a cordless vacuum cleaner for my birthday.
Oh, how is it?
It’s rubbish…
Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.