tuo

Forms

tuo (feminine tua, masculine plural tuoi, feminine plural tue)^[1] Old forms include teu, tio and to, and the old masculine plurals tói, tua and tui.^[2] Popular Tuscan uses tu’ before the noun for every gender and number (il tu' babbo), and central Italy has tua for both plurals.^[3][4] Old and dialect enclitic forms are -to and -ta: pàtreto “your father”, mòglieta “your wife”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tuus (“your”), from Latin tū (“you”).^[5][6][7][1] DELI calls the line of descent unclear: a Latin ⟨tŭ-⟩ would give Italian ⟨tuo-⟩, as the plural ⟨tuoi⟩ shows, so a spoken variant ⟨tŏum⟩ has to be assumed.^[5] Wiktionary sets out the steps: Latin ⟨tuum⟩ dissimilated to ⟨*tou⟩ and ⟨*tɔu⟩, as in Sardinian tou, giving ⟨*twɔu⟩ and plural ⟨*twɔi⟩;^[1] Italian then simplified /wɔ/ before a vowel to /u/, as in bue, except before /i/, which kept ⟨tuoi⟩, as mio has the plural ⟨miei⟩.^[1]

The word is panromance: French ton and tien, Occitan to, Catalan teu, Spanish tu and tuyo, Portuguese teu and Romanian tău.^[6][8] The Latin word continues Proto-Italic *towos, from Proto-Indo-European *tewos, which Nocentini and Devoto compare with Ancient Greek τεός (teós) (Aeolic, Doric) and Lithuanian tãvas; the variant *twos is behind σός (sós) and Old Church Slavonic твои (tvoi).^{[1][6][9][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and GRADIT date the word to the second half of the 13th century, DEI to the 13th century.^[6][7][11] DELI's first dated record is the pronoun used without a noun, “what is yours”, in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century; the adjective “belonging to you” is in Boccaccio's Decameron, 1348–1353.^[5]

Semantic evolution

GDLI's quotations include Dante's “Lasciane andar per li tuoi sette regni” (let us go through your seven realms, Purgatorio 1).^[2] The plural i tuoi “your family, your relatives” is recorded before 1602 in Francesco Serdonati,^[5] and the pronoun with its own article, il tuo “what is yours”, before 1566 in Annibal Caro.^[5] Feminine phrases with an understood noun are popular: ne hai fatte delle tue (you've been up to your usual tricks) is recorded in 1939–1940 and goes back to the 15th-century Novella del Grasso legnaiuolo.^[5][4]

With singular nouns of kinship it takes no article (tuo padre) except when the noun is altered or affectionate (la tua sorellina), with regional variation for mamma.^[7][12] Colloquial Italian forms a jocular superlative, tuissimo.^[4]

Timeline

• Second half of the 13th century – First records of tuo.^[6][7]
• End of the 13th century – The Novellino has the pronoun “what is yours”.^[5]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses tuo “belonging to you”.^[5]
• Before 1566 – Annibal Caro uses the pronoun il tuo.^[5]
• Before 1602 – I tuoi “your family” in Francesco Serdonati.^[5]
• 1939–1940 – ne hai fatte delle tue is recorded by Palazzi.^[5]

Meanings

Determiner

1. your (informal, one person): belonging to you: la tua giacca è sulla sedia.^[7][12][13]
2. Part of you, proper to you, physically or in mind: le tue mani, i tuoi ricordi.^[7][12]
3. Made, said, written or given by you: ho letto la tua lettera.^[7][12][4]
4. Linked to you by family, friendship, work and the like: tuo cugino, il tuo allenatore.^[7][12][3]
5. After the noun, with emphasis: la scelta è tua.^[7][14]

Pronoun

1. yours: la mia macchina è più vecchia della tua.^[4][1]
2. i tuoi: your family, your parents.^[5][4]
3. il tuo: what belongs to you, your own money or property.^[5][4]
4. la tua: (with an understood noun) your opinion, your side, your letter: dì la tua.^[4]

Word family

• intuarsi

Related words

• tu
• te
• ti
• Latin tuus
• French ton

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 446
3. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 456
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3929
12. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli