what is a "spread"?

We hear the word "spread" on the news everyday at the moment -and  usually the news is bad! So what does "spread" mean exactly?

Well, as used in the news reports the spread is the difference in the yield (rendimento) between the 10-year Italian State bonds (Btp) and the German Bund. A high yield suggests that investors consider the risk to be high, and vice versa.

However, spread can have a sweeter meaning: chocolate spread, for instance, as below.

In fact, one of the meanings of spread as a verb is 'spalmare'

e.g. He likes to spread butter on his toast before eating it.

It is also commonly used to mean "diffondere" as in "spread the good news", but also the less pleasant "spread rumours", which is more similar to gossiping.

Spread is irregular - it is what we call a  'weak verb'. These are verbs that end in -t or -d that do not add the -ed suffix in the past tenses. So the past simple and past participle of spread remain spread (spread - spread - spread). Other common verbs that do NOT change are:

cost, cut, put ,hit and hurt

It is interesting to note that most of the verbs that are irregular in English now come from Old English - they are native verbs that are very different from the Italian translation. They are also some of the most commonly used verbs, so you have to learn them!