Skip to content

barbetta

small beard, goatee

noun bar-BET-tah Rare
Body & Health Appearance

Usage Note

Barbetta is a diminutive of barba ('beard'), used affectionately or descriptively for a small, neat beard such as a goatee. Italian makes heavy use of diminutives with -etta/-etto; the choice of suffix can signal affection, smallness, or both. The plural is regular: barbette. Not to be confused with barchetta ('little boat').

Examples

"Portava una barbetta curata sul mento."

Natural Translation

He wore a neat little beard on his chin.

Free starter pack

Building your Italian vocabulary?

Get the 100 most common Italian words as a free PDF — one email, no spam.

Explore Italian by topic