Femminili

Femminili is the plural form of the Italian adjective femminile, used in grammar to denote the feminine gender. In Italian, as in many languages, nouns carry grammatical gender—masculine or feminine—and adjectives and determiners must agree with the noun in gender and number. The feminine gender is assigned to many nouns that denote female beings (for example, donna, ragazza) as well as to numerous inanimate nouns (for instance, città, libertà).

The feminine form of nouns and adjectives affects how words are written and pronounced in a sentence. Adjectives describing feminine nouns take a feminine form, and articles or determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. There are regular patterns as well as irregularities: some feminine nouns end in -a, others in -e or in -zione, -tà, -ità, and a few end in consonants. The plural of feminine nouns and adjectives typically follows standard Italian pluralization, with feminine nouns often ending in -e or changing in other ways depending on the ending of the singular form; adjectives in the feminine plural also change accordingly.

In grammar discussions, the term femminili is frequently used to label things relating to the feminine gender, for example sostantivi femminili (feminine nouns) and forme femminili (feminine forms). It also appears as the plural form of the adjective femminile when describing multiple feminine nouns, since the modified noun may be masculine plural in agreement.

There are regularities and exceptions, and the gender of a noun must often be learned with the word itself. Dictionaries indicate gender to assist learners and writers.