bambino

See also: Bambino

English

Etymology

From Italian bambino.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bæmˈbinoʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

bambino (plural bambinos or bambini)

1. A child or baby, especially a representation in art of the infant Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes. [from 18th c.]
   • 1988, David Quammen, The Flight of the Iguana:

     These [spiders] in my office were newborn babies. A hundred scuttering bambinos, each one no bigger than a poppyseed. Too small still for red hourglasses, too small even for red egg timers.

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Bambino”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume I (A–B), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 645, column 1.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bambino”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Italian

Etymology

Onomatopoeic bambo for the first stammerings of children, plus -ino (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bamˈbi.no/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (un bambino):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ino
• Hyphenation: bam‧bì‧no

Noun

bambino m (plural bambini, feminine bambina, diminutive bambinétto (“smallish child”) or bambinùccio (“baby”), augmentative bambinóne (“large child; child-like person”), pejorative bambinàccio, endearing bambinèllo)

1. child, baby, toddler, tot (male or of unspecified gender)
2. (baby) boy, young boy
3. (zoology) breed of short hairless cats

Derived terms

• bambino soldato
• bimbo (“baby”)

Related terms

• bambola (“doll”)

Descendants

• → English: bambino
• → French: bambin
• → Sicilian: bamminu, vamminu

See also

• ragazzo