Meaning & use
tartufo
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
An Italian dessert of ice cream shaped into a ball, often with a chocolate or fruit center.
Grammar: Countable, and the Italian plural tartufi is often kept: two tartufi for the table.
Patterns
- a tartufo for dessert
- order a tartufo
We finished the meal with a tartufo, cold and dark with a cherry inside.
The waiter brought two tartufi on a chilled plate.
nouncountable
An Italian word for a truffle, the expensive underground fungus used in cooking.
Grammar: Countable; in English texts about Italian food it appears in phrases like pasta al tartufo.
Patterns
- pasta al tartufo
- shaved tartufo
The menu listed risotto with tartufo shaved over the top.
He ordered tagliolini al tartufo and said it was worth the price.
Word forms
| plural (Italian) | tartufi |
|---|
Common combinations
- tartufo nero
- Tartufo nero is the dark, strongly scented kind from Umbria.
- tartufo bianco
- White tartufo from Alba sells for astonishing prices.
- a scoop of tartufo
- She asked for a scoop of tartufo instead of cake.
- chocolate tartufo
- The chocolate tartufo came rolled in cocoa.
Synonyms and how they differ
- truffle
- The normal English word for the fungus, and also used for chocolate truffle candies; use it if your readers may not know Italian.
- ice cream ball
- A plain descriptive phrase for the dessert shape, but it loses the specific Italian association.
Commonly confused: tartufo or truffle?
tartufo vs truffle
In English truffle usually means the fungus or a chocolate sweet, while tartufo on a menu most often means the Italian ice-cream dessert.
Practice
On a dessert menu, what does "tartufo" most likely name?
Choose one answer.
In the dessert section, tartufo is the molded ice-cream ball; the fungus sense appears in savory dishes such as pasta al tartufo, so option 0 fits only that context.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “tartufo”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.