femminile

Forms

femminile (plural femminili); also a masculine noun, plural femminili^[1] Old Italian forms include feminile, femenile, femminil and fiminil.^[2] The archaic and poetic form is feminile.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian femmina + -ile.^[5][4][6][7] Wiktionary instead takes it from Latin fēminīnus with a change of suffix by dissimilation, and the TLIO points to feminilis, given in the DEI.^[1][2] Tommaseo cites Latin feminalis in Theodorus Priscianus.^[8] The direct continuation of fēminīnus is femminino, recorded in the 12th century.^[9]

femmina is fēmina (“woman, female”).^[10][9] De Vaan explains fēmina as an old middle present participle of Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to suckle”), “the one who nurses”, which is also the root of fēcundus.^[11][9] The double ⟨mm⟩ is a lengthening of the consonant after the stressed vowel of a word stressed on the third syllable from the end, a frequent lengthening in such words.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Andrea da Grosseto's Tuscan translation of 1268, and DELI's is from before 1294, in Guittone d'Arezzo, with the sense “of a female, of a woman”.^[2][10] The grammatical sense is recorded in the 14th century, in the translation of Guillaume de Saint-Thierry.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used femminile of female animals and women, of what was considered typical of women, often in a disparaging sense of weakness, and of the female sex as a whole;^[2] arte femminile was work such as making clothes and linen.^[2] Cecco Angiolieri writes of la falsa natura femminile, and a proverb held that il consiglio femminile o è troppo caro o è troppo vile, “a woman's advice is either too dear or too worthless”.^[7][2][8]

The modern dictionaries add technical senses: the female organs and characters in biology, the feminine caesura in classical metre and the feminine cadence in music.^[12][4] The phrase al femminile passed from grammar into wider use, meaning “from a woman's point of view”.^[10][3] As a noun femminile now also names a women's sports event and a women's magazine, which the GDLI's supplement quotes from the Corriere della Sera of 1992.^[13][7]

Timeline

• 1268 – Andrea da Grosseto uses femminile.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it, “of a woman”.^[10]
• 14th century – The grammatical sense appears.^[10]
• 1992 – The Corriere della Sera uses femminile for a women's magazine.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a female or a woman: il sesso femminile.^[5][6][4]
2. Typical of women: Aveva una grazia tutta femminile.^[5][6]
3. For women, reserved to women or made up of women: of clothes, schools, magazines, teams.^[5][6][4]
4. (biology) Of the organs or characters of the female sex, in animals and plants.^[5][6][12]
5. Feminine: showing or setting off a woman's charm.^[5][6]
6. Of a man, effeminate.^[5][6]
7. (grammar) Of the feminine gender: un nome femminile.^[5][6][4]
8. (prosody) Cesura femminile, the caesura after the first short syllable of the third foot of the hexameter.^[4][12]

Noun

1. (grammar) The feminine gender; a feminine form or ending.^[5][13][3]
2. Femininity; the women's point of view.^[5][13]
3. (sport) A women's event or tournament.^[13][14]
4. A women's magazine.^[13][7]

Word family

• femminilità
• femminilizzare
• femminilizzazione
• femminilmente
• femminilismo
• iperfemminile

Related words

• femmineo
• femminino
• Latin fēminīnus

Usage notes

Al femminile means “by women, from women's point of view”: letteratura al femminile.^[13][3][10] Linea femminile is descent through the daughters.^[13][8]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli