Colleghe

Colleghe is the feminine plural of the Italian noun collega, meaning female colleagues or female coworkers. It refers to women who work together in the same organization, department, or professional setting. The masculine plural form is colleghi; the singular forms are collega (used with un collega or una collega, depending on the gender).

Etymology and usage notes: The word collega comes from Latin collega, meaning partner or associate, from collegium, a body bound together. In Italian, the gendered plural forms reflect the gender of the people being referred to: colleghe for a group of women, colleghi for a group of men or a mixed group, and collega as the common singular form that can indicate either gender depending on the article.

In practice, colleghe is used in formal and informal discourse to identify or refer to a group of female coworkers, classmates, or peers in a professional or academic context. Examples include: Le colleghe dell’azienda hanno presentato una proposta; Le colleghe dell’università tengono una riunione settimanale. The term can pair with adjectives: colleghe attente, colleghe italiane, colleghe esperte. While colleghe is specifically feminine, the gender-neutral use of the singular collega is common when the gender of a single coworker is not specified, or when speaking about coworkers in general.

See also: collega, colleghi, collegio.