The Gender of Nouns

In Italian nouns have a grammatical gender and a number.

If we classify the nouns according to their gender, we’ll have:

1. Masculine nouns
2. Feminine nouns
3. Epicene nouns (gender neutral)

Masculine nouns indicate a masculine person / animal and in the singular form almost always end in -o, -e.

Examples:

• Gatto / Cat (male)
• Cane / Dog (male)
• Precetto / Precept (this is an abstract noun so it has no gender per se, but grammatically it is a masculine noun).

Feminine nouns indicate a feminine person / animal and in the singular form almost always end in -a, -e, -ù.

Examples:

• Gatta / Cat (female)
• Fonte / Spring (fountain)
• Virtù / Virtue (this is an abstract noun so it has no gender per se, but grammatically it is a feminine noun).

Epicene nouns are nouns that have only one form to indicate either sex.

Examples:

• Il nipote (male) / The nephew (or grandson)
• La nipote (female) / The niece (or granddaughter)

Note that there are many exceptions to this basic rules. For example, there are some masculine singular nouns ending in -a, like poeta (poet) and some feminine singular nouns ending in -o, like mano (hand). Sometimes the only way to ever be sure of the gender of a certain noun is to look it up in the dictionary.

In Italian, knowing the gender of a noun is fundamental: indeed, all the other words describing the noun (articles, pronouns, adjectives) present in the sentence always agree with it.

Examples:

• Il gatto / The cat (male)
• La gatta / The cat (female)
• Il gatto ha preso un topo / The cat has caught a mouse
• Il mio cavallo è bello / My horse is beautiful
• Mia sorella è alta / My sister is tall