scamparla bella

Parola del giorno

Today’s Parola del giorno is the verb expression scamparla bella, which can mean to dodge a bullet or to have narrow escape.

This is an example of a pronominal verb, which requires the use of the pronoun la and is similar to verb expressions like piantarla or smetterla.

See the expression used below:

Giulia ha perso il treno per Roma, ma pochi minuti dopo ha scoperto che era stato cancellato per un guasto. Insomma, l’ha scampata bella!

Giulia missed the train to Rome, but a few minutes later she found out it had been canceled because of a mechanical problem. All in all, she dodged a bullet!

Vocabulary Builder

There are lots of these kinds of pronominal expressions in Italian! Here’s a short list of some common ones worth learning and incorporating into your Italian:

• cavarsela to get by (in the sense of to manage)
  
  All’esame se l’è cavata bene.
  He/she did well enough on the exam.
  

• farcela to manage, to succeed, to do
  
  Non ce la faccio più!
  I can’t do it anymore!
  

• vedersela to deal with, to face something
  
  Te la vedrai con me!
  You’ll have to deal with me!