Have you ever bought a bottle of wine that costs more than €4? Well then you would savor it, right? Centellinare, in Italian, means to savor, to sip, or to nurse a drink. It can also mean to take pleasure in something, little by little. If you’re thinking, ‘hey that sounds like a word of the day from a few months back,’ then you are right: sorso, coming from sorseggiare, is a synonym of centellinare.
As you can see, centellinare is made up of the word cento, or the number 100. It’s as if you would take a hundred sips of something if it were really that good, and if you really wanted to enjoy it. Or maybe you want to enjoy every tiny, little, hundredth part of something.
Examples:
‘Centellino le puntate di The Wire, perchè appena finisco la serie, avrò un senso di vuoto.’ – I savor every episode of The Wire, because I know as soon as I finish the show, I’ll feel the void.
‘Non c’è niente di meglio che centellinare una bottiglia di Brunello.’ – There’s nothing better than nursing a bottle of Brunello.
