Other forms: italians
Italian is the language of Italy, and describes anything from it. Speak Italian, Italian food, an Italian restaurant.
The standard language is based on the Tuscan of Dante, which is why a fourteenth-century poet decided how a modern country speaks. Regional languages remain strong. Italian supplies English with the vocabulary of music almost entirely — piano, allegro, soprano, tempo — and a good deal of the vocabulary of food. Note that Italian adjectives are capitalised in English, as all nationality words are.
1adjectiveitalianBelonging to Italy or its language.
“We ate at an Italian restaurant that served homemade pasta.”
2nounlanguageThe language of Italy.
“Roughly sixty-five million people speak Italian.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
italian is a language or nationality.
Latin
Italia — Italy
Medieval Latin
Italiānus
Middle English
Italian
English
Italian
English, today
italian
Italian comes from Middle English Italian, from Medieval Latin Italiānus, from Latin Italia (“Italy”). by surface analysis, Italia + -n.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA