Permettevate

Permettevate is the second-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Italian verb permettere, meaning you all were allowing or you all used to allow. It is a past-tense form used to describe ongoing or habitual permission in the past.

The verb permettere comes from Latin permittere, formed from per- “through, by” and mittere “to send, to let.” In Italian, permettere is a regular -ere verb, and permettevate shows the typical imperfect endings for the voi form. The stem in this form includes a consonant change, yielding permettev- plus the ending -ate, resulting in permettevate.

Usage notes: The imperfect tense is commonly used for past actions viewed as habitual, repeated, or ongoing in the past, as well as in descriptions or set scenes in narrative. Permettevate can appear in direct or reported speech, or in descriptions of past permissions granted by a subject to others. It is less common in contemporary spoken Italian outside of narrative or formal contexts, where the preterite or present perfect may be used to express completed permissions.

Example: Voi permettevate ai bambini di giocare nel cortile durante il pomeriggio. This sentence conveys that, in the past, you all were allowing the children to play outside in the afternoons.

See also: permettere, Italian verb conjugation, imperfect tense in Italian.