Italiano attraverso le immagini: comparativi e azioni quotidiane

What does “largo” mean in Italian?

Largo looks like English “large,” but it means wide or broad, not big. A strada larga is a wide street, not a big one; pantaloni larghi are loose, wide trousers. Its opposite is stretto, meaning narrow or tight. When you want to say “big,” Italian uses grande instead. So largo is about how far something stretches across, not its overall size — an easy word to misread if you trust the look-alike.

This is a picture-lesson recording, and the word shows up while the narrator compares the blades of a pair of scissors: “Questa lama è stretta. Questa lama è larga.” — this blade is narrow, this blade is wide. The same pair returns a moment later with “Questa è una strada larga” (a wide street) and “Questi pantaloni sono larghi” (wide trousers). Largo comes from Latin largus, “plentiful, generous” — the same root that gave English “large,” though the two meanings drifted apart over time. Useful related forms: larghezza (width), allargare (to widen, to make broader), and the comparative più largo (wider) heard throughout the lesson.