genere

Forms

genere m (plural generi)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin genus (“birth, descent, race; kind”), genitive ⟨generis⟩.^[2][3][4] Sabatini–Coletti explains the Italian form: it was rebuilt on the stem ⟨gener-⟩ with a final ⟨-e⟩, as with other Latin nouns whose stem ends in a consonant.^[5] Old Italian also had a form ⟨genero⟩, which DELI finds in the Tuscan translation of Palladius about 1340.^[2][6]

The Latin noun belongs with gignō (“to beget, give birth to”), gēns (“clan, people”) and genitor (“begetter”).^[2][4][1] It goes back through Proto-Italic *genos to Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os (“race, stock”), from the root *ǵenh₁- (“to beget, be born”).^[1][3] Its closest relatives are Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “race, kind”), Sanskrit जनस् (jánas, “race, class of beings”) and Old English cynn, the ancestor of English kin.^[3][1] The genitive shows the Latin change of a /s/ between vowels to /r/, so an older ⟨*genes-is⟩ can be reconstructed.^[1]

In the Romance languages the noun was taken up as a learned word too: French genre, Spanish género and Portuguese gênero.^[3][7][8] A popular continuation survived only in Old French giens and Old Occitan ges, which became words strengthening a negation, much as rien came from a noun.^[9][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Brunetto Latini's Rettorica (about 1260–1261, Florentine), where the word is a term of rhetoric and logic: a higher class under which things with a common essence are ranked.^[6] DELI's first dated sense is the philosophical one, “general idea”, in Dante's Convivio (1304–1308).^[2] GRADIT dates the word to before 1294.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the logical class the word spread to classes of every kind, and in Old Italian it also meant “lineage, descent”, “the greater part” and, in genere umano, mankind.^[6] Grammatical gender is recorded before 1498 in Savonarola, “manner, style” in Vasari in 1550, the literary genre before 1565 in Benedetto Varchi, and the biological rank between family and species in Cosimo Bartoli in 1568.^[2] The commercial sense “goods, merchandise”, recorded in Luigi Da Porto in 1524, was still felt to be a new usage in 1812, when Bernardoni rejected it; today it survives in generi alimentari.^[2][4][5]

Nocentini notes that the French genre carried the sense “artistic or literary kind” into other European languages (English genre, German Genre) and also gave English gender.^[3] In music genere is recorded before 1602 and passed into French in 1703 and into German in 1732.^[10] The recent sense “gender”, the social and cultural side of being male or female (identità di genere), follows English gender.^[11][5][12] The phrases del genere “of that kind, like that” and in genere “generally” are very common; the TLIO already records in genere in Old Italian.^[6][13][14]

Timeline

• c. 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses the word in his Rettorica.^[6]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for a general idea in the Convivio.^[2]
• c. 1340 – The form genero appears in the Tuscan Palladius.^[2]
• Before 1498 – Savonarola uses it for grammatical gender.^[2]
• 1524 – Luigi Da Porto uses it for goods, merchandise.^[2]
• 1550 – Vasari uses it for “manner, style”.^[2]
• Before 1565 – Benedetto Varchi uses it for a literary genre.^[2]
• 1568 – Cosimo Bartoli uses it for a class in a classification.^[2]
• 1703 – The musical term passes into French.^[10]
• 1812 – Bernardoni rejects the sense “goods” as a new usage.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. kind, sort, type: a group of people or things that share their main features: Che genere di musica ascolti?^[4][13][5]
2. (biology) genus, the rank above the species and below the family.^[4][13][5]
3. (of art, literature, music) genre: il genere giallo, il genere comico.^[4][5][14]
4. (grammar) gender of nouns, adjectives and pronouns: masculine, feminine, neuter.^[4][5][1]
5. (sociology) gender, the social and cultural characteristics attributed to men and women: studi di genere.^[5][11][12]
6. (chiefly plural) goods, products: generi alimentari.^[4][13][5]
7. (philosophy) a class of things that share essential properties and differ in non-essential ones.^[4][13][14]

Word family

• generico
• genericità
• generare
• generazione
• generatore
• degenerare
• congenere

Related words

• generale
• generoso
• gente
• genio
• genitore
• Latin genus
• French genre

Usage notes

Del genere means “like that, of that sort”: Non ho mai visto niente del genere.^[13][11] In genere means “usually, generally”, and il genere umano is mankind.^[13][14][11] Non è il mio genere means “it is not to my taste”.^[14][11][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1783
10. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
11. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli