"il" meaning in Italian

See il in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Article

IPA: /il/, /‿jl/ (note: after vowels), /‿l/ (note: after vowels), /i/ Audio: LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-il.wav
Etymology: From earlier 'l, a reduced form of lo. The initial i- is a svarabhakti vowel added in order to make the pronunciation easier. Proof of this is De scriptura nigra (a work in Old Lombard) only employing il to mean “the”, and el to mean “he/him”. Also, works in 1400’s Tuscan showing both “il” and “el”, yet with no forms such as “de Roma” instead of “di Roma” appearing, prove that il does not originate as a pretonic evolved form of el. Head templates: {{head|it|article|plural|i|g=m-s}} il m sg (plural i) Forms: i [plural], no-table-tags [table-tags], il [masculine, singular], lo (l') [masculine, singular], i [masculine, plural], gli [masculine, plural], la (l') [feminine, singular], le [feminine, plural], er [alternative], el [alternative, archaic, dialectal], 'l [alternative, archaic, pronunciation-spelling], i' [alternative]
  1. the Tags: masculine, singular
    Sense id: en-il-it-article-uXdtfd9F Categories (other): Italian articles, Italian entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 30 entries, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From earlier 'l, a reduced form of lo. The initial i- is a svarabhakti vowel added in order to make the pronunciation easier. Proof of this is De scriptura nigra (a work in Old Lombard) only employing il to mean “the”, and el to mean “he/him”. Also, works in 1400’s Tuscan showing both “il” and “el”, yet with no forms such as “de Roma” instead of “di Roma” appearing, prove that il does not originate as a pretonic evolved form of el.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "i",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "no-table-tags",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "table-tags"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "l",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "inflection-template"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "il",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lo (l')",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "i",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gli",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "la (l')",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "le",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "er",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "el",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "archaic",
        "dialectal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "'l",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "archaic",
        "pronunciation-spelling"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "i'",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "it",
        "2": "article",
        "3": "plural",
        "4": "i",
        "g": "m-s"
      },
      "expansion": "il m sg (plural i)",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "Italian",
  "lang_code": "it",
  "pos": "article",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Italian articles",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Italian entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 30 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "the"
      ],
      "id": "en-il-it-article-uXdtfd9F",
      "links": [
        [
          "the",
          "the"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/il/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-il.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/‿jl/",
      "note": "after vowels"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/‿l/",
      "note": "after vowels"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/i/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "il"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "Pages with 30 entries",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Yucatec Maya entries with incorrect language header",
    "Yucatec Maya lemmas",
    "Yucatec Maya transitive verbs",
    "Yucatec Maya verbs"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From earlier 'l, a reduced form of lo. The initial i- is a svarabhakti vowel added in order to make the pronunciation easier. Proof of this is De scriptura nigra (a work in Old Lombard) only employing il to mean “the”, and el to mean “he/him”. Also, works in 1400’s Tuscan showing both “il” and “el”, yet with no forms such as “de Roma” instead of “di Roma” appearing, prove that il does not originate as a pretonic evolved form of el.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "i",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "no-table-tags",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "table-tags"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "l",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "inflection-template"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "il",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lo (l')",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "i",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gli",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "la (l')",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "le",
      "source": "inflection",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "er",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "el",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "archaic",
        "dialectal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "'l",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "archaic",
        "pronunciation-spelling"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "i'",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "it",
        "2": "article",
        "3": "plural",
        "4": "i",
        "g": "m-s"
      },
      "expansion": "il m sg (plural i)",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "Italian",
  "lang_code": "it",
  "pos": "article",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Italian 1-syllable words",
        "Italian articles",
        "Italian entries with incorrect language header",
        "Italian lemmas",
        "Italian terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "Pages with 30 entries",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "the"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "the",
          "the"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "singular"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/il/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-il.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav/LL-Q652_%28ita%29-Happypheasant-il.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/‿jl/",
      "note": "after vowels"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/‿l/",
      "note": "after vowels"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/i/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "il"
}

Download raw JSONL data for il meaning in Italian (2.5kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable Italian dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.