cicerone

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a guide who conducts visitors around a place and explains its history, art, or antiquities

   A knowledgeable cicerone led us through the ruins and translated the inscriptions.

2. 2
   verb

   to guide someone around the sights of a place

   The curator agreed to cicerone the visiting scholars through the gallery.

Borrowed from Italian cicerone, originally a humorous allusion to the Roman orator Cicero and a guide's learned talkativeness. Cicero's name comes from Latin cicer ("chickpea").

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