Diminutive, Pejorative and Augmentative Nouns

Or how to say something is really small, really big, or really ugly

Author: This article was written by a previous contributor - Hannah Jackel. Hannah spent nine lovely months in Viterbo, Italy studying abroad, where she fell in love with the Italian language, culture and food.

Note to the passionate Italian language student: This is a paid article that I hope makes you laugh and love Italian just a little bit more than you already do. If you love this content, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you’re looking for free content, try any of the bite-sized lessons.

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When I first started speaking Italian, my speech was peppered with a lot of “moltos.” Things were molto grande, molto piccolo, molto brutto.

And while molto is a great way to express that something is really big or small or ugly, it isn’t the only way.

In Italian, you can add suffixes to nouns to indicate what kind of cat, house or man you’re talking about. Is it an especially ugly house? A really little cat? A really big man?

Nouns with these suffixes are called

• diminutive nouns

• pejorative nouns

• augmentative nouns.

They help you convey your meaning without having to use a bunch of adjectives or “moltos.”

Diminutive nouns are nouns with suffixes that indicate smallness.

These suffixes are:

-ino

-icino

-etto

-ello

-erello

-otto

-ina

-icina

-etta

-ella

-erella

-otta

Masculine suffixes are used with masculine nouns; feminine suffixes are used with feminine nouns.

To add the suffix, remove the last vowel of the noun and tack the suffix on the end.

-etto, -etta, -ello, -ella, -otto, -otta are diminutives but they have a pejorative and derogatory meaning, so be aware!

Per esempio: