L'indovinello dà un indizio.

to give

Breakdown of L'indovinello dà un indizio.

• uno: a
• l'indovinello: the riddle
• l'indizio: the clue

Questions & Answers about L'indovinello dà un indizio.

Why is it L'indovinello instead of il indovinello?

Because indovinello starts with a vowel.

In Italian, the singular definite article becomes l' before a vowel:

• l'indovinello = the riddle
• l'amico = the friend
• l'idea = the idea

The apostrophe shows that a vowel was dropped from the article.

What part of speech is indovinello, and is it masculine or feminine?

Indovinello is a masculine singular noun.

You can tell it is masculine here because it takes the masculine article l' and would normally pattern like other masculine nouns:

• singular: l'indovinello
• plural: gli indovinelli

The ending -o is also a very common masculine ending in Italian, though not every noun follows that pattern.

Is dà the verb dare? What exactly does it mean here?