fiacche

Fiacche is a word in Italian that functions mainly as the feminine plural form of the adjective fiacco or fiacca, meaning sluggish, languid, or lacking energy. The corresponding masculine forms are fiacco (singular) and fiacchi (plural), while the feminine singular is fiacca. As a result, fiacche is used to describe nouns that are feminine and plural, or used more generally to refer to things described as slow or lacking vitality.

The term is used to characterize people, animals, or objects and can apply to moods, performances, or physical states. Examples include expressions like una giornata fiacca (a dull or sluggish day) or gambe fiacche (sluggish legs). In everyday language, fiacche can convey a mild, somewhat literary or colloquial tone, depending on the context.

Grammatically, fiacche agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies: feminine plural. It tends to appear in descriptive writing or informal speech rather than technical or formal prose. Fiacco/fiacca and their inflected forms form a small family of related expressions dealing with energy, vigor, and vitality.

Etymology traces the root fiacc- to a sense of weakness or lack of vitality, though precise historical development is not always detailed in simple lexicons. In standard Italian, there are no widely recognized meanings of fiacche beyond its role as the feminine plural of a descriptive adjective, with possible regional variations in usage.