il

Forms

il m sg (plural i, feminine la)^[1] Old Italian and dialect forms include Old Italian el (in Guittone d'Arezzo and Guido Cavalcanti) and, after a vowel in poetry, l’ (Galeotto fu 'l libro).^[2][3][4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ille (“that”), from the accusative ⟨illum⟩ shortened in unstressed position before a noun.^[5][6][7][8] The article is a Romance innovation drawn from the Latin demonstrative; only Sardinian took its article from Latin ipse.^[6] Its cognates are French le, Occitan le, Catalan el, Spanish el, Portuguese o and the suffixed article Romanian -l.^[6][9]

How “il” arose beside lo is disputed.^[6][1] Nocentini leaves open whether its “i-” continues the first vowel of ⟨ille⟩ or is a vowel added before a reduced ⟨l⟩.^[6] Wiktionary takes the second view: “il” comes from an earlier “l’”, a reduced form of “lo”, with an “i-” added to ease pronunciation, pointing to Old Lombard texts that use “il” only as the article and “el” only as “he, him”.^[1] DELI refers to the studies of Paul Aebischer and A. Ambrosini on how “il” and “lo” came to be distinguished.^[5]

Devoto analyses Latin ⟨ille⟩ as a first element ⟨il-⟩, seen also in Latin alius (“other”) and in archaic ⟨olle⟩, and a second element, probably ⟨-ne⟩ assimilated to ⟨-le⟩, that marks demonstratives of distance in several Indo-European languages.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Florentine account book of 1211, where the article has the distributive sense “each, every”.^[5][7][6] The ordinary sense, marking a thing or person as distinct from others of its kind, is recorded in Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250.^[5]

Semantic evolution

DELI dates the article's further uses: for a whole category (before 1348, Francesco da Barberino), with the old demonstrative force “this, that” (1300–1313, Dante), and for time, “during, on” (before 1348, Giovanni Villani).^[5] Old Italian also had a pronoun il “him, it”, as in Dante's Sordello a sé il trasse (“Sordello drew him to himself”); it survives only in poetry.^[3][10][11]

The rules that divide il from lo have shifted: il was once used before z and gn too (il zio), and before pn it is still common beside the prescribed lo (il pneumatico).^[10][4][3] Lombard and bureaucratic usage puts il before first names and surnames (il Carlo, il Rossi), and before the surname of a famous man (il Manzoni).^[4][7][12]

Timeline

• 1211 – A Florentine account book has il “each, every”.^[5][7]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses the article for a particular thing or person.^[5]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses il as a demonstrative, “this, that”.^[5]
• Before 1348 – Francesco da Barberino uses the article for a category, and Giovanni Villani for a time (“on, during”).^[5]
• 14th century – The pronoun il “him; to him” is recorded.^[11]

Meanings

Article

1. The, before masculine singular nouns beginning with a consonant other than s + consonant, z, gn, ps, x: il libro, il cane.^[7][3][4]
2. Before the surname of a famous man, a title with a name, or (regional, bureaucratic) a name or surname: il Manzoni, il dottor Rossi.^[7][12][4]
3. With a comparative, forming the relative superlative: il più alto.^[7][12]
4. Each, every; on, during: il sabato “on Saturdays”.^[5]

Pronoun

1. (archaic, poetic) Him, it, as an object.^[3][12][10]

Related words

• lo
• la
• i
• gli
• quello
• Latin ille

Usage notes

The plural is i (gli before the words that take lo).^[2][10] With the prepositions a, da, di, in, su the article forms al, dal, del, nel, sul;^[4][3] col (with con) is now often written con il.^[4][3] In poetry, after a vowel, it can lose its vowel: Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse (Dante, Inferno 5).^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 215
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1930
12. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse