New Word: Incubo

I hear new words all the time, look them up in my dictionary, and then can’t remember their meaning the next time I encounter them.  Sometimes, I learn the meaning in such a way that I think I’ll never forget it.

The other day, I was sitting at the bar, trying to read the newspaper.  The frontpage headline showed a picture of the destruction caused by the flooded Pò River in Northern Italy, with this superimposed over it:

“Il Pò Paura, Incubo Pieno”

I got that there was fear because of the Pò flooding and that something was full, and I could appreciate the alliteration, but I had no idea what “incubo” meant.

Using my stellar etymological skillz, I wondered why the river was full of a demon.  That couldn’t be right.

I did what I often do in situations like this when I’m too lazy to look it up in my 5 euro “pictionary”, as it’s called by our friend, A. 

I asked F.:

“Incubo?”

“Che?”

“What it means?”

“You know ‘dream’?”

“Si.”

“Dream, no good.”

“Ahhhh. Nightmare.  Full of nightmares!”

I also like to think that my bad English grammar, while doing nothing to help F. learn proper English, does wonders for my learning Italian grammar.