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marcio

rotten

adjective MAR-choh Rare

Also means

corrupt

Usage Note

Marcio agrees in gender and number: marcia, marci, marce. Applied to food it means physically rotten; applied to people or institutions it means thoroughly corrupt. The idiom avere torto marcio means 'to be completely wrong' — a fossilised usage where marcio intensifies the adjective rather than meaning 'rotten'. Note the stress on the first syllable.

Examples

"La frutta era tutta marcia per il caldo."

Natural Translation

All the fruit had gone rotten in the heat.

Literal Translation

The fruit was all rotten because-of the heat.

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