Italiano — Feminine noun formation
Many Italian nouns for people have a masculine and a feminine form. The feminine is usually built from the masculine by changing the ending — but the ending you use depends on how the masculine word ends: attore becomes attrice, dottore becomes dottoressa, cameriere becomes cameriera.
How it works
Nouns ending in -tore usually take -trice (attore → attrice). Nouns in -e often add -essa (dottore → dottoressa, studente → studentessa). Nouns in -e or -o that behave like regular adjectives simply switch the vowel to -a (cameriere → cameriera).
Examples
| Masculine | Feminine | Ending change |
|---|---|---|
| attore | attrice | -tore → -trice |
| scrittore | scrittrice | -tore → -trice |
| dottore | dottoressa | -e → -essa |
| studente | studentessa | -e → -essa |
| professore | professoressa | -e → -essa |
| cameriere | cameriera | -e → -a |
| infermiere | infermiera | -e → -a |
Good to know
The -essa and -a patterns are not interchangeable: it is dottoressa, not "dottora", but cameriera, not "camerieressa". Learn the feminine with the noun. Note too that some job titles have no separate feminine and stay the same (il/la cantante, il/la giornalista); many nouns in -ista work like this.