-uto

Forms

-uto (feminine -uta, masculine plural -uti, feminine plural -ute)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin -ūtus, the ending of the past participle of verbs in ⟨-ēre⟩ and ⟨-ĕre⟩, already used in Latin to make adjectives from nouns.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin suffix shows possession in cornūtus (“horned”) and nāsūtus (“big-nosed”).^[5] Wiktionary explains it as a late rebracketing of ⟨-u-⟩ plus -tus.^[1] The sequence was found in adjectives made on nouns with stems in ⟨u⟩, such as cornū, and in participles of verbs whose stems ended in ⟨u⟩ or ⟨v⟩ (acūtus, solūtus).^[1][1] Zingarelli traces the participle suffix to Proto-Indo-European *-tós.^[3][1]

Semantic evolution

Italian has two uses of -uto.^[3] It forms the past participles of verbs in -ere (creduto, veduto).^[3][1] It also forms adjectives from nouns, meaning “provided with” and often “having a large or conspicuous” thing, sometimes with a pejorative tone: barbuto, cornuto, nasuto, ossuto, panciuto, pennuto, ricciuto.^[6][3][2]

Meanings

Suffix

1. Forms the past participle of regular verbs in -ere: creduto, veduto.^[3][1]
2. Forms adjectives from nouns, meaning “having (much of) what the base names”, often pejorative: baffuto, biforcuto, occhialuto, paffuto.^{[7][3][2][4][1]}

Word family

• baffuto
• barbuto
• biforcuto
• cornuto
• gozzuto
• linguacciuto
• nasuto
• occhialuto
• ossuto
• paffuto
• panciuto
• pennuto
• ricciuto

Related words

• Latin -ūtus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier