degli

Degli is the contracted form of di + gli in Italian and functions as a partitive determiner meaning "some" or "of some" when referring to masculine plural nouns. It is used with nouns that would take the definite article gli in the plural (typically masculine nouns beginning with a vowel or with s + consonant clusters, z, gn, ps, etc.). The particle indicates an unspecified quantity rather than a specific set.

Common use examples include degli amici (some friends), degli studenti (some students), degli zii (some uncles), and degli esami (some exams). Degli can also appear in contexts that express material or composition, as in una torta degli ingredienti?—though more typical is to pair di with a noun to convey source or content, as in una tazza degli scarti di frutta; in practice, the main, standard sense remains the partitive.

Degli sits alongside other di- contractions that form the partitive determiner set: del (di + il), dello (di + lo), dell’ (di + l’), della (di + la), dei (di + i), delle (di + le). The choice depends on the gender and the initial sound of the following noun. Use degli when the noun is masculine plural and would take gli as the definite article. Use dei for masculine plural nouns that would take i; use delle for feminine plural nouns; use del, dello, dell’ for the corresponding masculine/feminine singular forms before nouns starting with the relevant letters.

Notes: degli is not used before feminine nouns, where the form delle is required, and it is a determiner rather than a standalone pronoun. To refer to an unspecified quantity without repeating a noun, Italian typically uses other structures such as ne or specific adjectives instead of degli as a pronoun.