enel

Enel (Italian national electricity company)

noun EH-nel Rare

Origin: Acronym: Ente Nazionale per l'Energia Elettrica (National Body for Electrical Energy), founded 1962.

Usage Note

Enel is Italy's largest electricity utility, originally a state monopoly and now a publicly listed multinational. Italians commonly use it metonymically for the electricity bill or provider: pagare l'Enel means to pay the electricity bill. It is treated as a masculine proper noun: l'Enel, though in everyday speech the article is sometimes dropped. Now operating in over 30 countries.

Examples

"La bolletta dell'Enel è arrivata ieri."

Natural Translation

The Enel bill arrived yesterday.

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