I get an daily email with an Italian "word of the day". Today the word is labbro. I was surpprised to see that labbro is masculine in the singular form and feminine in the plural. I even looked it up in my dictionary and found out the email was not in error. (when the word has an anatomical meaning...when used like "the lip of a vase", the plural is masculine)

Also, while the singular masculine "il labbro" looks regular, the plural form "le labbra" looks irregular.

Are there other Italian words like this?

Bill

Il braccio - le braccia (arms) but i bracci is used when braccio is used as "wing, ward, extension, branch, strait, the arm of a river and the like.
l'orecchio - le orecchie (ears)

quote:

Originally posted by Fibonacci:
Are there other Italian words like this?
Bill

Two come to mind:

(arm) il braccio - le braccia
(finger) il dito - le dita

adding:
l'uovo - le uova

Il muro- le mura

Bill most body parts are this way.


art

Is there an explanation for or some logic for this?

Bill

In many languages (Hebrew, for example and I bet some other Semitic languages) body parts that come in pairs (hands, eyes, ears) are feminine. But in these cases, the singular is feminine as well.

And I've been told (don't know if it's true in Italian, or even in French for that matter), that at the height of ecstacy French lovers often refer to each other in terms of the opposite gender. Do you think there could be a relationship here ?

Following Alessandra's post:
il muro - i muri (walls of a house)/le mura (the city walls)

quote:

Originally posted by Fibonacci:
Is there an explanation for or some logic for this?

Most commonly, the word has two different plurals, one of which may be of uncommon use, which indicate completely different things. Giulia has given two good examples ^_^ So, different plurals are used because they have also different meanings, one more and one less common.

uova