Abstract

This article reconstructs the history of the rare phrase acqua puttana ‘liquid containing excess water, especially alcohol, coffee or broth’. The phrase, not recorded by Italian dictionaries, occurs for the first time in 1737 in Paolo Rolli’s commentary on a comedy by Ludovico and Gabriele Ariosto. More recently it was to be found in Corsica, Tuscany and, at least until the 20th century, in Veneto.