In Italian, you can change the shade of meaning of a noun simply by adding a suffix to it. To express a negative opinion, describe something as ugly or of poor quality, or complain about an unpleasant situation, you can use pejorative (derogatory) suffixes.
To alter a noun, drop its final vowel and add the appropriate suffix:
- -accio for masculine singular nouns
- -accia for feminine singular nouns
For example, la giornata (the day) becomes la giornataccia (a bad day), and la figura (the impression) becomes la figuraccia (a terrible impression).
Masculine Nouns
The same pattern applies to masculine nouns using -accio. For instance, l'odore (the smell) becomes l'odoraccio (a bad smell), and il lavoro (the job/work) becomes il lavoraccio (a bad job/task).
Expressing Poor Quality and Bad Behavior
These suffixes are incredibly common in spoken Italian when venting frustration about badly made objects or poorly behaved people. A substandard car is a macchinaccia, a terrible place is a postaccio, and a badly behaved boy is a ragazzaccio.
Like normal adjectives and nouns, these suffixes change in the plural:
- -acci for masculine plural
- -acce for feminine plural
For example, la parola (the word) becomes la parolaccia (the bad word / swear word). In the plural, it becomes le parolacce.
