/ˈrompere le ˈskatole/ lit. ‘break the boxes’
Italian idiom, colloquial. To annoy or irritate someone.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Italian speaker.
How do people use Rompere le scatole
?
Colloquial and everywhere in daily speech, fine with friends and family but too casual for work email. The annoyed person goes in the indirect object: “mi rompe le scatole”, “smettila di rompermi le scatole”. The bare command “non rompere!” (stop bugging me) is the short form, and someone who does it is a “rompiscatole”.
Also said rompere
Rompere le scatole
in real sentences
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Ho capito dai, non rompere le scatole!
OK, I get it, stop bugging me!
Tatoeba, sentence by gina, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Rompe solo le scatole.
He’s just being a pain.
Tatoeba, sentence by Guybrush88, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Rompere le scatole
come from?
The boxes are a polite swap. English Wiktionary explains, under “rompiscatole”, that “scatole” stands in for “coglioni” or “palle”, both meaning balls, so the clean version keeps the shape of the rude one. Italian Wiktionary lists “rompere le scatole” under “scatola” as pestering someone insistently. Neither gives a date for when the boxes took over.
Mistakes learners make with Rompere le scatole
Confusing it with the reflexive “mi sono rotto le scatole”, which means “I’m fed up”, not “I annoyed someone”. And the boxes are always plural: “rompere la scatola” just means breaking a box.
Other Italian idioms like Rompere le scatole
Spot a mistake in Rompere le scatole
?
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