Why “stornello” is a great word
A short, improvised Italian lyric poem or folk song, often rustic, amorous, or satirical. From Italian stornello, of uncertain origin; possibly a corruption of ritornello ("refrain") or related to storno ("starling"), perhaps by analogy with the bird's chattering song. Unlike the polyphonic complexity of the Renaissance madrigal or the fixed architecture of the sonnet, the stornello is a simpler, monophonic utterance from the fields and the piazza. It is the quick, teasing verse tossed across a sun-baked courtyard, the mournful melody hummed while tending vines, the sharp, satirical couplet that spreads like gossip—folk art not as artifact, but as breath, gone before you can catch its tail.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).