Thirty-eight is 'e mazzate, a beating. The root is mazza, a club, and the plural is the point: a single blow would not earn a square.
The board's violent stretch runs 38 to 41: a beating, the noose, tedium, the knife, with a hernia wedged in the middle of it.
- 38
- 'E mazzate
- the beating
- Row 31–40 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Nothing recorded.
Other things filed on 38
Rage (rabbia)
A cockerel crowing (gallo che canta)
A command (comando)
A mistake (errore)
An ambassador (ambasciatore)
A woollen blanket (coperta di lana)
A city (città)
In Neapolitan life
The word survives well beyond Naples. Mazzata has entered general Italian for a blow of any kind, including a financial one, in the way English uses hammering.
38 in the smorfia — frequently asked
A beating, blows with a stick. From mazza, a club.
In a run of violence: the beating at 38, the noose at 39, the knife at 41. Only the hernia at 40 interrupts it.