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What does “gazza ladra” mean in Italian?

Sharing five secrets, the singer La Niña reveals that her album closes with a song for two magpies that visit her garden. In Italian a magpie is a gazza ladra, literally a “thieving magpie,” named for the old folk belief that magpies steal shiny things. She titled the track pica pica, which is the bird’s scientific name.

Italians know the phrase above all from Rossini’s beloved opera La gazza ladra, where a magpie’s stolen-spoon habit nearly gets a girl wrongly condemned. The key word inside it is ladro/ladra (thief). So one bird’s name gives you a vocabulary word, a famous opera, and a charming piece of folklore.