Anyone who’s ever had to deal with Italian paperwork will feel this word in their soul: lungaggine, ‘slowness’ or ‘delay’. (Click here to hear it pronounced.)

It’s formed by taking the adjective lungo (‘long’ or ‘slow’) and adding the suffix ~aggine, which turns it into a noun while simultaneously adding a negative connotation. 

You’ll see the same pattern in words like stupidaggine (‘stupidness’, from stupido) or sbadataggine (‘carelessness’, from sbadato).

And while ~aggine works a lot like ~ness in English, it doesn’t create an abstract noun, describing the trait of stupidness or carelessness, so much as an instance of that trait: it’s more like an ‘act of stupidity’ or ‘act of carelessness’. 

Lungaggini (plural), then, are exasperatingly lengthy things – like a particularly verbose speech, a self-indulgently slow film, or typically anything that occurs inside a local government office.

Indeed, you’re most likely to encounter it in the phrase lungaggini burocratiche: ‘bureaucratic delays’, or as you could put it, ‘red tape’. 

Che lungaggine, questo discorso!
This speech is such a drag!

Lo SPID è un strumento utile per chi vuole evitare lungaggini burocratiche.
A digital ID is handy for anyone who wants to avoid red tape.

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