lavoravano

Lavoravano is the third-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Italian verb lavorare, meaning to work. The imperfect (imperfetto) describes ongoing, habitual, or background actions in the past and is commonly used in narrative, description, or reported speech. It indicates that an action was in progress at a given time or occurred repeatedly over a period.

Morphology: lavorare belongs to the first-conjugation -are verbs. In the imperfect, the ending for the third-person plural is -avano, yielding lavoravano. The full set of imperfect forms is: io lavoravo, tu lavoravi, lui/lei lavorava, noi lavoravamo, voi lavoravate, loro lavoravano. In ordinary discourse, the subject is typically omitted because the verb ending already encodes the person and number.

Usage: Lavoravano typically appears to convey a past scene of labor or routine. Examples: "I contadini lavoravano nei campi fin dall’alba." "Mentre la pioggia cadeva, la squadra lavorava al progetto." It contrasts with the passato prossimo "hanno lavorato" to mark a completed action, or with future tenses like "lavoreranno" for anticipated activity. Lavoravano can also function in reported speech to describe someone’s past actions, as in "Dicevano che lavoravano sodo."

Etymology: from Latin laborare, cognate with other Romance languages’ words for to work. The form is a normal part of Italian verb conjugation and not a separate lexical item.