Italian word of the day
Pronunciation | |
English translation | Filth, grime |
Origin | From the Latin word spurcum, “dirty” or “unclean” |
Different forms of sporco
Like most adjectives in Italian, sporco has two articles (definite or indefinite articles) and two numbers (singular or plural).
Singular | Plural | |
Masculine | Sporco | Sporchi |
Feminine | Sporca | Sporche |

Examples
La maglietta è sporca di salsa. | The shirt is dirty with sauce. |
Il papà infila i panni sporchi in lavatrice. | Dad stuffs the dirty clothes into the washing machine. |
Hai le unghie davvero sporche! | Your nails are really dirty! |
Il pavimento è molto sporco. Devo pulirlo. | The floor is filthy. I need to clean it. |

Related words
To translate “to be dirty” as a synonym for “obscene”, use the adjectives volgare and osceno.
Ho letto un libro molto volgare. | I read a very dirty book. |
Another less common word you can use to translate dirty in Italian is the adjective sudicio. Sudicio has a stronger meaning than sporco, so use to describe something that is really dirty.
Luca mette a lavare un maglione sudicio. | Luca launders a filthy sweater. |
Quella maglietta è sudicia, cambiala subito! | That shirt is filthy, change it now! |
To translate to dirty as a verb, use sporcare, from sporco, or insudiciare, from sudicio.
Stai sporcando tutto il pavimento! | You are soiling the whole floor! |
To say that you soiled yourself, use the reflexive verbs sporcarsi or insudiciarsi.
Se cammini nel fango, ti sporcherai le scarpe. | If you walk in mud, you will get your shoes dirty. |

More free Italian resources
You might want to keep learning Italian online with these free Italian resources:
❤️ If you liked this lesson on how to use sporco in Italian, share it with your friends!