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I write a diary entry in Italian each day to practice my vocabulary and sentence structure. Currently, my theme is 'Chi sono?' so I am looking for words that describe me. Today, I want to write about shopping and would like to know what an Italian who is addicted to shopping would be called. Can someone help me, please?

I.M.
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Jim's Mum
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2 Answers2

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A medical term is oniomaniaco/a, from oniomania, with a clear Greek etymology. Only, it is not very common.

You might find it disappointing, but the most popular term is shopping-dipendente or … shopaholic, both derived from English. You may also try to use "acquistomaniaco/a", derived from acquistomania, only in playful, ironic contexts though.

Probably the best alternatives are "oniomaniaco/a" and "shopping-dipendente".

  • Grazie mille! Una risposta dettagliata! – Jim's Mum Aug 04 '14 at 05:15
  • I wouldn't suggest "oniomaniaco". As a native Italian speaker, I never heard of such a word, and I wouldn't have understood it if someone mentioned it in a conversation. Shopping-dipendente is the most common term, and [imho] what a native speaker would write in their diary; I find the other words you suggested to be extremely uncommon. – Giulio Muscarello Aug 06 '14 at 00:18
  • Giulio, these are all neologisms, often used only in extremely special occasions - their use is so rare that Google Books Ngram can't find any of them, at all, not even a single spurious occurrence :-) –  Aug 06 '14 at 00:57
  • On the contrary, look at the word shopaholic from the English corpus: it has been increasingly used at least since 1980. –  Aug 06 '14 at 01:02
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As this would no doubt be a "cool" word, I have no doubt in my mind that most Italians would say "shopaholic"—assuming they understood what it meant.

You hear people say "lo shopping" instead of their own (Italian) word, come on.

blah
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  • Shopaholic is an acceptable word, but in my experience few people are proficient enough in English for them to be aware of the meaning of the suffix "-holic". – Giulio Muscarello Aug 08 '14 at 07:54