Italian Reference Grammar - Nouns, articles and adjectives

Nouns

'Nouns are the types of words which give the names of things, people, places, happenings and ideas… Nouns can be singular (referring to one thing) or plural (referring to many).' (Language into Languages Teaching, University of Glasgow, Scottish Executive Education Department, 2001)

In Italian, nouns which refer to objects or things are either masculine or feminine.

Nouns which refer to male humans or animals are, as in English, masculine; nouns which refer to female humans or animals are feminine.

But there can be exceptions. If an engineer is a woman, the correct term is still the masculine noun 'l’ingegnere'. Many nouns denoting jobs or characteristics originally associated with men are still masculine even when applied to women.

Knowing the gender of the nouns is important because articles and adjectives which refer to the noun will also change.

For example:

Il libro è giallo - the book is yellow

La casa è gialla - the house is yellow

Singular nouns

Singular nouns in Italian generally end in:

• -o (usually masculine)
• -a (usually masculine)
• -e (masculine or feminine)

Plural nouns

For plurals, the general rule is:

• the masculine names change their endings to -i
• the feminine names ending in -a change to -e
• the feminine names ending in -e change to -i

These tables illustrate how the noun endings for both genders change from singular to plural.

Exceptions to the plural rules

There are, however, some exceptions:

Nouns ending in '-ca', '-ga', '-cia' and '-gia':

For example:

• la pesca / le pesche (f) - the peach/es
• il collega / i colleghi (m) - the colleague/s
• l' arancia / le arance (f) - the orange/es
• la spiaggia / spiagge (f) - beach/es

Nouns ending in -co and -go:

For example:

• il cuoco / i cuochi - the cook/s
• l’albergo / gli alberghi - the hotel/s
• il medico / i medici - the doctors

There are exceptions to this rule too:

• l’amico/gli amici - the friend/the friends
• il greco/i greci - the Greek/the Greeks  

Nouns ending in -io

For example:

• il figlio / i figli - the sons
• lo zio / gli zii - the uncles

Indeclinable nouns

In Italian, as in English, there are several names that have the same endings for the singular and plural forms. It’s possible to recognise if they are singular or plural by:

• the article
• the adjective
• the verb used in the sentence

Some indeclinable nouns are:

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