arridere

to smile upon, to favour

verb ar-REE-deh-reh Rare

Origin: Latin arridere (to smile at, to please)

Also means

to be favourable

Usage Note

Arridere is a formal, literary verb used almost exclusively in the third person: la fortuna gli arride ('fortune smiles upon him'). It conjugates like ridere but is never used for a simple physical smile; sorridere covers that. It takes essere as its auxiliary in compound tenses. Rarely encountered outside literary or journalistic prose.

Examples

"La fortuna non sempre arride ai meritevoli."

Natural Translation

Fortune does not always smile on the deserving.

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