I sogni giovanili di Alberto Sordi e Fellini

What does “senza una lira” mean in Italian?

Senza una lira means dead broke — the Italian equivalent of “without a dime.” The lira was Italy’s currency until the euro arrived in 2002, yet the phrase outlived the coin: the language froze it into an idiom for having nothing at all. Reaching for the old currency makes it vivid and slightly nostalgic, the way English still says “I haven’t got a penny.”

Here actor Alberto Sordi remembers his hungry youth with Federico Fellini: eravamo due poveracci senza una lira — two broke nobodies who buttered up a cook so she’d slip extra steak under their single plate of spaghetti, while they dreamed of becoming a great actor and the greatest director in the world. The lira lives on in a cluster of money sayings: non avere una lira (not have a bean), costare due lire (cost next to nothing), non valere una lira (be worthless). Un poveraccio = a poor wretch / hard-up soul.