You know when it’s ‘snowing’ really [not] hard and all your Italian friends cancel their plans with you? Well that is being stood up, or in Italian, dare buca.
A term used throughout Italy, dare buca literally means, to give a hole:
Dare = verb, to give
Buca= noun, a hole
Since dare is the verb, it must be conjugated accordingly, depending on person and tense.
I am not really sure how the literal meaning of the words come to mean ‘to stand someone up,’ or ‘to cancel on someone,’ but it does. Perhaps you make a hole in someone’s plans by cancelling with them?
Some examples:
Luigi mi ha dato buca ieri sera. = Luigi stood me up last night.
Non mi dare buca come l’altra volta! = Don’t stand me up like you did last time!
