Did you know "gazette," "umbrella," "fiasco," "bank," and "quarantine" all come from Italian? Each episode explores a word the world borrowed — and never gave back.

Words that Italian donated to the world

Did you know the word "gazette" — as in newspaper — comes from a tiny Venetian coin? In 16th century Venice, the first printed news cost one gazzetta. The coin was probably named after the gazza, the magpie — the bird famous for collecting and spreading everything it finds. From Venice, the word traveled across Europe and never came back. This is the story of one small coin, one chatty bird, and a word the whole world borrowed to name its newspapers.