PAPARAZZI

PRONUNCIATION:
(pah-puh-RAT-see)

MEANING:
noun: Photographers who follow famous people to take their pictures for publication.

ETYMOLOGY:
Plural of paparazzo, from the name of a photographer in Federico Fellini's 1959 film La Dolce Vita. Fellini got the name via scriptwriter Ennio Flaiano who picked it from the 1901 travel book By the Ionian Sea. The book mentions a hotel owner named Coriolano Paparazzo. Fellini claimed at another time that the name Paparazzo suggested to him "a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging". Earliest documented use: 1961.




PAMPARAZZI - mounted photographers of the Argentine plains

PAUPARAZZI - very poor photographers