Luna

Italian word of the day

Origin	From the Latin word luna, “moon”
Translation	Moon
IPA pronunciation	/ˈluːna/

Different forms of luna

Like most nouns in Italian, luna has two articles (definite or indefinite articles) and two numbers (singular or plural).

Examples

La Terra ha un solo satellite naturale, la Luna.
The Earth has only one natural satellite, the Moon.

Europa è una delle lune di Giove.
Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons.

Quante lune ha Nettuno?
How many moons does Neptune have?

Non c’è ossigeno sulla Luna.
There’s no oxygen on the Moon.

Related words

The phases of the moon in Italian are:

• luna piena (full moon)
• luna nuova (new moon)
• luna crescente (waxing moon)
• luna calante (waning moon)

For example, you can say…

Stasera c’è la luna piena.
There’s a full moon tonight.

La luna sta calando.
The moon is waning.

La luna nuova non è visibile.
The new moon is not visible.

Lunatico is the Italian translation for “moody”. Make sure you don’t translate it as lunatic, because it’s not used to mean a crazy kind of person. It describes someone who often changes moods, just like the moon often changes phases!

Il mio vicino di casa è molto lunatico.
My neighbor is very moody.

What’s sweeter than honey? A honeymoon, or luna di miele in Italian!

This literally translates to “moon of honey”, where miele means honey.

Dove avete trascorso la vostra luna di miele?
Where did you spend your honeymoon?

A lunar eclipse is translated into Italian as either eclissi lunare or less commonly, eclissi di Luna.

Even though it ends in -i, eclissi is a feminine word in Italian: you say una eclissi, shortened to un’eclissi.

Quando sarà la prossima eclissi lunare?
When is the next lunar eclipse?

The translation for Moon landing in Italian is allunaggio, also called sbarco sulla Luna, landing on the Moon.

Mio nonno crede che lo sbarco sulla Luna sia stato una bufala.
My grandpa believes that the Moon landing was a hoax.

Lo sbarco sulla Luna è stato un enorme passo avanti dell’umanità.
The moon landing was a great step forward for mankind.

Allunaggio is similar to the words atterraggio and ammaraggio.

Atterraggio comes from terra, which means earth. It’s used for landings on, well… the earth.

Ammaraggio comes from mare, which means sea. When an airplane is forced to land in the sea, this is the word that you need to use.

L’atterraggio è stato più turbolento del previsto.
The landing was more turbulent than expected.

Expressions

When a person wants too much or asks for something that can’t possibly be done, there’s an Italian saying that goes chiedere la luna, which literally translates to “to ask for the moon”.

Gifting the moon wouldn’t be an easy thing to do, hence this idiom!

Then there’s avere la luna storta, which means “to be in a bad mood” and literally translates to to have a crooked moon.

Did you know?
In the Italian translation of the Harry Potter books, professor Lupin‘s nickname is Lunastorta!

Another popular idiom that features the word for moon in Italian is promettere la luna nel pozzo, literally “to promise the moon in the well”.

It means to deceive someone by making them believe that they can get something they desire. The moon is reflected in the water of a well, but it’s just an illusion. As soon as you move the water, the moon is no longer there.

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