Questions & Answers about Il vestito è viola.
Why is a woman's dress masculine ("il vestito")?
In Italian, grammatical gender doesn't always match the gender of the person who wears the item. The noun vestito is grammatically masculine, so it takes the masculine article il, even though a dress is worn by women.
Is "vestito" a false friend? It looks like the English word "vest".
Yes, it is a false friend! Vestito most commonly means "dress" or a man's "suit". It does not mean "vest" (which would be gilet). Also, if you use it in the plural as i vestiti, it generally just means "the clothes".
If the noun is masculine, why doesn't the color end in -o to match?
Viola is a special color word in Italian that never changes its ending. It is "invariable". Whether the noun is masculine, feminine, singular, or plural, it stays exactly the same. So "the purple dresses" would just be i vestiti viola. Colors named after things in nature (like the violet flower) usually follow this rule.
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