maschile

Maschile is the Italian term for the masculine gender in grammar. It refers to the class of words that are treated as masculine in agreement with nouns, adjectives, determiners, and pronouns. In Italian, as in other Romance languages, grammatical gender is a formal category that is distinct from biological sex and it governs how words change form to match one another in a sentence.

Etymology and scope. The word derives from Latin masculus, meaning male or manly, via the development of Italian maschile. It is used as an attributive or classificatory label, for example in grammar descriptions, dictionaries, and language-learning materials to denote the masculine form or masculine agreement.

Usage in Italian grammar. Nouns that denote male beings or masculine concepts are typically masculine, and accompanying words must agree in gender and number. The masculine singular definite article is il, and the plural is i (il libro, i libri). Adjectives that describe masculine singular nouns commonly end in -o (buono, alto); in the plural they usually end in -i (buoni, alti). For feminine nouns, the endings shift to -a in the singular and -e in the plural (buona, buone). Some nouns of shared or common gender, or those ending in -e, may require different agreement patterns or vary by dialect.

Cross-linguistic context. The concept of a masculine grammatical gender exists in many languages, with similar terms in other Romance languages—masculino in Spanish and Portuguese, masculin in French, and masculin in Romanian, among others. The specific Italian term maschile, however, is used primarily within Italian linguistic descriptions.

See also: grammatical gender, Italian grammar, gender agreement, Latin.