graffiti

/grfeeti/

  • plural noun (sing. graffito /grfeeto/) treated as sing. or pl. unauthorized writing or drawings on a surface in a public place.

  • verb write or draw graffiti on.

  — DERIVATIVES graffitist noun.

  — USAGE In Italian the word graffiti is a plural noun and its singular form is graffito. In modern English, however, graffiti is generally treated as if it were a mass noun (with a singular verb), similar to a word like writing.

  — ORIGIN Italian, from graffio ‘a scratch’.

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