egli

Forms

egli m (feminine ella)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *illi, a spoken form of ille (“that”) with a final ⟨-i⟩ taken from the relative quī (“who”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Wiktionary gives the source as Late Latin illī.^[1] The old language had Old Italian elli, and ⟨egli⟩ was at first its palatalised variant before a word beginning with a vowel, as quegli beside quelli; the change of ⟨ll⟩ to ⟨gl⟩ before final ⟨-i⟩ belongs to Tuscany.^[3][6][7] The classical pronoun itself gave the form Old Italian el used before the verb, with the variants ⟨e’⟩ and ei.^[3]

The same pronoun is French il, Occitan el, Catalan ell, Spanish él, Portuguese ele and Romanian el.^[3][8] The singular thus fell together with the plural ⟨elli⟩, ⟨egli⟩, from the Latin nominative plural ⟨illī⟩; to keep them apart Italian formed the plural eglino with the verb ending ⟨-no⟩ of the third person plural (⟨egli ama⟩, ⟨eglino amano⟩), and later used essi and loro instead.^[3][6]

The Latin pronoun replaced Old Latin olle or ollus.^[9][1] De Vaan explains the change of ⟨o-⟩ to ⟨i-⟩ by analogy with iste, while Sihler, whom he cites, starts from a proclitic ⟨*elle⟩.^[9] Wiktionary traces the Old Latin form to Proto-Italic *olnos and further to Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“beyond, other”), the root of alius and alter.^[1] Nocentini sees a base ⟨*l-⟩ for something far from the speaker, also found in ultrā (“beyond”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the 13th-century Sicilian poet Ruggerone da Palermo, as the subject pronoun for the male person spoken of.^[2] Zingarelli dates it to before 1250.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th to 16th centuries egli could also be plural, and in the 13th and 14th centuries it was used after prepositions too.^[6] Dante writes anzi ch’egli uscissero “before they went out”, with the plural.^[11][12] Old and literary usage also referred it to animals and things, where the standard language now uses esso.^[7][13] Literary and Tuscan Italian used it as an empty subject of impersonal sentences, as in Petrarch's egli è ben tempo omai “it is high time now”.^[14][12]

Today egli is being replaced by lui.^[2][13] In a frequency lexicon of contemporary Italian (1972) egli occurs 260 times, 180 of them in school books and never in film scripts, against 778 for lui.^[2] Manzoni had already removed or replaced it with lui in many places in I promessi sposi, where it still occurs 61 times, 18 of them referring to God.^[2] Written with a capital, Egli stands for God.^[4][11][1]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – first record of egli.^[10]
• 13th century – Ruggerone da Palermo uses the pronoun.^[2]
• 13th century – the plural forms eglino and egliono appear.^[6]
• 1972 – a frequency lexicon counts egli 260 times against 778 for lui.^[2]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (formal, written) he: the subject pronoun for a male person already named or known from the context: Quando lo chiamai, egli non rispose.^{[4][11][14][1]}
2. (literary, Tuscan) An empty subject in impersonal sentences, “it”: egli è vero che….^[4][14][12]
3. (with a capital) God.^[4][11][1]
4. (archaic) They.^[4][11][10]

Word family

• eglino

Related words

• ella
• lui
• esso
• il
• quello
• Latin ille

Usage notes

Egli is used only as a subject; the other cases are the stressed lui and the unstressed lo and gli.^[12] The feminine is ella, and the plural eglino is rare, replaced by essi.^[12][11] The literary ei and its shortened e’ are used before a single consonant or a consonant followed by l or r, while popular Tuscan prefers gli, for the plural too.^[12][10] GRADIT lists the old plural use as a second egli meaning “they”, from the Latin plural illī.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
6. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1431
7. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 66
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse