An Interesting Italian Word: Furbo

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December 23, 2007· Filed Under Italian 

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I suspect that Gege’ Bau, who commented on one of my posts recently, may know something about the meaning of the Italian word ‘furbo’.

In case you did not know, it means crafty, clever, smart, sharp, astute and sly.  Not all at the same time, mind you.   You need to know the context.

Furbo is a Funny Word

For example, if someone manages to get to the head of a queue before you in Italy, then they are ‘furbo’ smart, in his or her eyes, although in my eyes they are ‘furbo’ sly. If, on the other hand, I think up an imaginative solution to a problem, then I too will be regarded as being ‘furbo’, but not furbo sly, but ‘furbo’ astute/sharp.

Furbo is a funny (funny = strange/odd, in this case) word, and you need to be ‘furbo’ to understand it. It’s one of those odd positive/negative words, such as ‘clever’ in English, which sometimes means quite the opposite of intelligent, as my native English language readers will know.

Differing Concepts of Honesty

In fact this curious little word raises another interesting issue, which is the differing concepts of ‘honesty’ that exist in UK and Italian culture.  Indeed, what may be considered as being plain dishonest by an Englishman/American (?), would not necessarily be considered so by the average Italian.

Indeed, one of Italy’s most famous ‘furbi’ was the late Bettino Craxi, who apparently embezzled a large sum of Italian taxpayers’ money, and then hid in Tunisia, and who did not believe he had done anything that wrong. In his eyes, he was only being ‘furbo’, and demonstrated this a little further by moving to a country with no extradition agreement with Italy.

Even if the words ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’ may exist in many languages, and they do in Italian, the actual meaning of, or rather concept behind these words most probably varies from culture to culture. The trick is knowing whether or not other cultures have either a similar or different concept of honesty to your own.

However, the process of establishing the concept of honesty may well turn out to be somewhat painful, if you are not rather careful. Obviously, it helps if you can find some ‘honest’ inside information, but then again how can you know if the inside information is really honest?

Answer: Experience is the greatest teacher, and eventually, after you have had a few ‘hot finger’ episodes, you may understand how the land lies.

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Comments

4 Responses to “An Interesting Italian Word: Furbo”

  1. Gege' Bau said on December 23rd, 2007 9:39 am

    For ‘un furbo’ to make his way to the head of a queue, there would first have to BE a queue, which in this country is an unknown concept! ;o)

    The furbo also makes good use of another strategy here: ‘fare lo scemo per non andare alla guerra’ (pretend to be stupid in order not to be sent to war). Examples: “What? You mean it’s not legal to take the fruit off the shelf and put it into my shopping bag?” “Honestly, I wasn’t stealing when I told you I would pay you for that (insert object here) then never bothered to fork over the cash!”… the list goes on ad nauseum.

    Where I come from (New York), ‘furbo’ refers to another type of infamous personality, the Wise Guy!

  2. AlexR said on December 28th, 2007 12:43 am

    Gege’ Bau - as I suspected, I see you understand the ‘furbo’ concept very well! Although, like me, you don’t really approve of it.

    This is not a surprise, and I suspect our respective parents instilled the traditional ‘Anglo-Saxon’ concept of honesty into us. Italian parents, on the other hand, instil the Italian version of honesty into their progeny.

    I, in my ignorance, expected my idea of honesty to be something of a universal concept before I arrived in Italy. Now I know that it is not.

    I’d really like to try and understand how and why these two different interpretations of honesty exist. It’s a curious subject, if nothing else…

    All the best,

    Alex

    PS I hope you continue to find my blog interesting! Cheers!

  3. Chris said on July 18th, 2008 11:50 pm

    “Examples: “What? You mean it’s not legal to take the fruit off the shelf and put it into my shopping bag?” “Honestly, I wasn’t stealing when I told you I would pay you for that (insert object here) then never bothered to fork over the cash!”… the list goes on ad nauseum.”

    >>> I’m an Englishman living in Italy, and that’s just wrong ^

    Furbo has nothing to do with plain old petty theft, it’s having cunning to gain an advantage, but wouldn’t say stealing fruit is having furbo.

    Ciao

  4. AlexR said on July 19th, 2008 12:04 am

    Hi Chris,

    Thanks for commenting. You are right - being ‘furbo’ is often just plain dishonesty - but the Italian concept of dishonesty is not the same the English, American or German concept of dishonesty.

    What is considered downright dishonest in the aforementioned cultures, is regarded as being ‘creative’ and smart in Italy. Which is the point I think I made in the post above.

    If you have lived here for any length of time, you will know this.

    All the best,

    Alex

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