Today's word is one you'll see - or hope to see - in Italian weather forecasts throughout the summer in Italy. Particularly this summer, as heatwaves last ever longer and become more intense.
A ** tregua** (hear it pronounced here) most literally translates as a truce. But in weather forecasts the
tregua dal caldois the pause between the heatwaves, when temperatures fall back towards the seasonal average for a couple of days. It’s one of the terms worth knowing if you want to follow Italian weather forecasts in high summer.
In arrivo una tregua dal caldo: da domenica temperature in calo e temporali
A break from the heat is on the way: from Sunday, falling temperatures and storms.
La tregua dal caldo durerà al massimo otto o dieci giorni
The break from the heat will last eight or ten days at most.
The word came into Italian from a Germanic root, through the medieval Latin treuga, Treccani tells us. The same root surfaces in German Treue, loyalty, and in English true. Underneath the truce sits the older idea of a pact or promise.
That first meaning of tregua is the military one, a temporary halt to fighting, and it’s still the word Italian news uses for a ceasefire. It can cover any suspension of hostilities, such as a tregua sindacale, when unions hold off on pay demands.
The sense you’ll reach for most in everyday language is the figurative one, which usually comes in the negative.
Something relentless is said to 'give no truce' in Italian, and the two set phrases for it in Italian are senza tregua, without let-up, and non dare tregua, to give no respite.
You’ll find both everywhere once you start looking. Rain, heat, work, pain, a persistent cough, a creditor, a nagging thought: anything that won’t leave you alone can be said to give no tregua.
Ha piovuto senza tregua per quindici giorni
It rained without a break for a fortnight.
I giornalisti non gli hanno dato tregua
The reporters gave him no respite.
Dante used the phrase to describe Fortune, whose turns of the wheel non hanno triegue, or 'have no pause'. For most of us in the summer months today's meaning is more welcome: at least a couple of cooler nights before the heat closes back in.
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