Translation from Italian to English: "tamborello"
Executive summary
The Italian word most commonly attested in the provided sources is "tamburello," which translates into English as "tambourine" when referring to the musical instrument [1] [2] [3] [4]. A distinct but related sense in Italian names a traditional ball game (pallatamburello) played with tambourine‑shaped bats; dictionaries note this sporting meaning separately [5] [3].
1. Direct translation: the musical instrument
Across standard online bilingual dictionaries "tamburello" is rendered in English as "tambourine" (the small frame drum with jingles) — Cambridge, Collins, Reverso and other lexica give this musical-instrument translation as the primary sense [1] [6] [2] [3]. Wiktionary also records the borrowing and equates tamburello with tambourine in English, confirming the mainstream lexical equivalence [4]. Example dictionaries and context sentences show Italian phrases such as "suonare il tamburello" translated as "to play the tambourine" [3] [2].
2. Secondary meaning: a traditional sport, not just a percussion toy
Italian also uses tamburello to name a regional team sport—often called pallatamburello—played in parts of Italy and southern France; English-language dictionary entries and PONS note this sporting usage and describe it as a ball game involving tambourine-shaped bats [5] [3]. Several translation resources list both senses (musical instrument and game), and examples in Linguee and PONS point to sports-club contexts and local competitions where "tamburello" denotes the game rather than the instrument [5] [7].
3. Spelling, variants and the user’s exact query
The user asked for "tamborello" specifically, but the reporting provided consistently features the form "tamburello" (with -re-), which is the headword in the cited dictionaries and examples [1] [6] [3] [4]. None of the supplied sources documents "tamborello" as a separate standard lemma; therefore it is not possible from these sources to assert that "tamborello" is a correct alternate spelling or a distinct word without external verification beyond the provided reporting [1] [4]. The safer reading is that "tamburello" is the canonical Italian form and that queries for "tamborello" are likely orthographic variants or typos, but that exact claim lies outside the explicit coverage of the sources [1] [4].
4. How to choose the correct English rendering in context
When the Italian context involves music, instruments, or phrases like "suonare il tamburello," the correct English word is "tambourine" [2] [3]. When the setting is sport, teams, regional clubs or mentions of "pallatamburello," the intended meaning is the traditional ball game and should be rendered descriptively (e.g., “the Italian ball game tamburello” or “pallatamburello”) to avoid confusion [5] [7]. Bilingual dictionaries such as Cambridge, Collins and Reverso consistently present both senses, which is why context must guide translation choices [1] [6] [2].
5. Sources, limits and a concise verdict
The translation evidence comes from mainstream bilingual dictionaries and translation corpora: Cambridge and Collins list the term and translation entries [1] [6], Reverso and Reverso Context provide example sentences equating the word with "tambourine" [2] [8], PONS and Linguee document the sporting sense [5] [7], and Wiktionary records the borrowing into English as tambourine [4]. The exact string "tamborello" does not appear as a headword in the supplied material, so this report limits itself to what the sources support: translate the Italian "tamburello" as "tambourine" for the musical instrument, and note a separate sporting sense [1] [2] [5] [3] [4]. If the original Italian text uses the uncommon variant "tamborello," further confirmation from native-speaker usage or additional lexicographic resources would be needed.