Agreement of colors
Reminder: masculine nouns ending in -o generally end in -i in the plural. Feminine nouns ending in -a generally end in -e in the plural.
Il quadro → i quadri
the painting → the paintings
La casa → le case
the house → the houses
Most colors agree in both gender and number (singular or plural) with the word they describe. These include rosso (red), azzurro (blue), nero (black), giallo (yellow), bianco (white) and grigio (gray).
Un divano giallo, due divani gialli
a yellow couch, two yellow couches
Una macchina rossa, due macchine rosse
a red car, two red cars
Colors ending in -e, such as verde (green), marrone (brown) and arancione (orange), only agree in the plural, when the -e ending becomes -i.
Un libro arancione, due libri arancioni
an orange book, two orange books
Una casa verde, due case verdi
a green house, two green houses
Some colors remain the same regardless of gender or number. These include blu (blue), viola (purple), beige (beige) and rosa (pink).
Il cielo blu, la valigia blu.
the blue sky, the blue suitcase.
I palazzi viola, le sedie viola.
the purple buildings, the purple chairs
Notes:
- The (masculine and feminine) plural forms of bianco (white) are bianchi and bianche and for grigio (gray) they are grigi and grigie.
- We can make color adjectives by taking the names of certain materials and adding -ato/ata: argento (silver) → argentato/a (silver); oro (gold) → dorato/a (golden); bronzo (bronze) → bronzato/a (bronze).
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