bambino
Americannoun
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bambinos,
plural
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bambini
plural
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a small child or baby.
-
an image of the infant Jesus.
noun
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informal a young child, esp an Italian one
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a representation of the infant Jesus
Usage
What does bambino mean? Bambino is the Italian word for a "male child or baby." It can also be used as a nickname or term of endearment for a man more generally.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bambino
1755–65; < Italian, equivalent to bamb ( o ) childish (perhaps originally nursery word) + -ino diminutive suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She claims she even uses words and mannerisms such as "mamma mia", "bambino" and "si" in conversation without realising it.
From BBC ● Dec. 22, 2024
Michelangelo: I’m lookin’ at your paintings and I gotta say I see no Real diff’rence from the scribbles of a one-armed bambino.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 2, 2020
First, Andrea Pirlo doing the Panenka penalty on the gurning, arms-flapping, Grobbelaar-impersonating Joe Hart, a moment of beauty that was missing only the words: "Ciao, bambino".
From The Guardian ● Jun. 7, 2014
He had conducted it in his Rio de Janeiro debut almost 63 years ago as a beardless bambino, and in his U.S. debut at Manhattan's Met in 1908.
From Time Magazine Archive
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"I think he's a duck of a bambino," she said.
From Cinderella Jane by Marjorie Benton Cooke
Fran Cornetta shared on Facebook that pastina was the "transition from liquids to solids" for her and all the bambini in her family.
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2023
The bambini – three boys aged seven, six and four – looked either adorable or a bit of a handful, depending on how much you knew about kids.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 18, 2014
Pinocchio was originally published serially in the weekly Giornale dei bambini, the “newspaper for kids,” where it gained a large following.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2011
Thousands of Romans, terrified by accounts of R.A.F. bombings in Naples, took their bambini into Vatican City, where they crowded together ten to 15 in a room.
From Time Magazine Archive
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And so off they go, the young men and women and the young families and the little bambini, leaving the old peoples behind to bend for themselves.
From "The Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech
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Where bambinos, billy goats and boogeymen curse entire teams.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2024
Two of the toughest bambinos in Italy came in: >The biggest political job was given to a man with no political but plenty of military fame, a 37-year-old child of iron named Ettore Muti.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Why do so many bambino-loving Italians find that they cannot afford to have more bambinos?
From Time Magazine Archive
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Of both bambinos and signorinas II Duce was judge.
From Time Magazine Archive
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And his aid in those long corridors, where bambinos smiled down at her with childish lips, helped her wondrously to understand in so short a time what they sought to convey to her.
From The Woman Who Did by Grant Allen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.