Italian - Wiktionary, the free dictionary


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From Middle English Italian, from Medieval Latin Italiānus, from Latin Italia (“Italy”).

Italian (comparative more Italian, superlative most Italian)

  1. Pertaining to Italy.

    Italian borders

  2. Pertaining to its people or their cultures.
    Hypernym: European

    Italian cuisines

  3. Pertaining to their language.
    Hypernym: Indo-European

    Italian verbs

  4. (obsolete, not comparable) Using an italic style; italic.

    • 1868, Henry Noel Humphreys, A History of the Art of Printing, page 175:

      It has been shown that there was a great disposition on the part of some German printers, especially Albert Durer, to adopt the rounded Italian type; others preferring the crisp angularity of the Gothic black-letter, even for general purposes; while for books of devotion it appears to have been deemed the more orthodox; the Italian style of type being deemed an innovation.

of or pertaining to Italy

of or pertaining to Italians

of or pertaining to the Italian language

Italian (countable and uncountable, plural Italians)

  2. (countable) An inhabitant of Italy, or a person of Italian descent.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:Italian person

    • 2012 May 5, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport‎[1]:

      As Di Matteo celebrated and captain John Terry raised the trophy for the fourth time, the Italian increased his claims to become the permanent successor to Andre Villas-Boas by landing a trophy.

  4. (uncountable) The official language of Italy, also spoken in San Marino, the Vatican, and parts of Argentina, Slovenia and Switzerland.
  5. (uncountable, cooking) A style of cuisine or individual dishes of or associated with Italy or Italian people.

    • 1995, Betty Crocker's New Italian Cooking, page 5:

      Simple Cannoli, Lemon Ice, or a delicious Tira Mi Su. With so many wonderful recipes, you can eat Italian anytime.

  6. (uncountable, textiles) Short for Italian cloth, a type of linen or cotton cloth with satin finish used primarily for linings.
  7. (uncountable) Short for Italian vermouth, a dark-colored sweet or mildly bitter vermouth.

    gin and Italian

    • 1971, John Doxat, The World of Drinks and Drinking, page 102:

      So the English women would have been interested in American drinks, and in came the gin-and-Italian, for example.

  8. (countable, Maine) Short for Italian sandwich.

(language):

inhabitant of Italy

language

  • IPA(key): /italian/ [i.t̪a.li.ãn]
  • Rhymes: -ian
  • Hyphenation: I‧ta‧li‧an

Italian

  1. inessive indefinite of Italia

Italian

  1. genitive singular of Italia