il.
the
Meaning & usage
the
Where this word comes from
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. Compare, by the way, Sicilian lu ~u, representing both the definite masculine singular article, and also iḍḍu (“he”) ḍḍu (“that”) and chiḍḍu (“that”); all cognates from the same source.
Tuscany form of lo
Tuscany form of gli
Where this word comes from
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. Compare, by the way, Sicilian lu ~u, representing both the definite masculine singular article, and also iḍḍu (“he”) ḍḍu (“that”) and chiḍḍu (“that”); all cognates from the same source.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.