Abstract concepts

The nineteenth entry is la disposizione, and it is the sort of noun that looks translatable and then makes a reader choose four separate times. On this page it carries the legal sense: la disposizione vale solo per i contratti nuovi is a provision, one clause of a rule, and « provision » is the only word that will serve there. Change the subject and the noun changes with it. La disposizione dei tavoli is the arrangement or the layout of the tables, with nothing legal about it at all. Said of a person, avere disposizione per la musica is an aptitude, a natural turn for something — and here « disposition » comes closest, though in English a disposition is usually a temperament rather than a talent. Then there is the phrase every visitor meets first, essere a disposizione, which is none of the three: it means to be available, at somebody’s service, and it is how an office offers to help. The plural narrows things once more, because le disposizioni at the foot of a form are the instructions to be followed. One noun, four English words, and only the sentence says which.