Seasons in Italian: vocabulary, gender and prepositions

The seasons in Italian are called la stagione in the collective singular, and break down into four words to remember. Their gender and the preposition that accompanies them follow precise rules, with a few nuances that often trip up English speakers.

The 4 seasons and their gender

Italian	English	Gender
la primavera	spring	feminine
l’estate	summer	feminine
l’autunno	autumn / fall	masculine
l’inverno	winter	masculine

Primavera and estate remain feminine even though nothing in their ending gives it away to an English speaker’s ear. Autunno and inverno, conversely, are masculine.

Saying “in spring”, “in summer”: the preposition in

Unlike English, where the preposition can sometimes vary, standard Italian systematically uses in, without the definite article.

Italian	English
in primavera	in spring
in estate	in summer
in autunno	in autumn / in fall
in inverno	in winter

In primavera, il giardino si riempie di fiori.
In spring, the garden fills with flowers.

The elided forms: d’estate and d’inverno

Two out of the four seasons are also very commonly used with the preposition di, in its elided form d’. D’estate and d’inverno are just as frequent as in estate and in inverno, with no difference in meaning.

Form with in	Elided form with d’	Translation
in estate	d’estate	in summer
in inverno	d’inverno	in winter

D’estate andiamo spesso al lago.
In summer, we often go to the lake.

Primavera and autunno do not have this elided variant in common usage: we stick with in primavera and in autunno.

Talking about a specific season: with article

Without an article, the season remains general. To designate a specific occurrence, like “last summer”, the article becomes necessary.

Italian	English
L’estate scorsa siamo andati in Sicilia.	Last summer, we went to Sicily.
La prossima primavera cambierò casa.	Next spring, I am going to move house.

Saying nella primavera or nell’estate for a general season is still possible but sounds literary, almost poetic; in spoken language, in primavera and in estate remain the norm.

When the seasons start in Italy

The Italian academic calendar starts each season on the 21st of the month, in line with the solstices and equinoxes.

Season	Start
Primavera	March 21
Estate	June 21
Autunno	September 21
Inverno	December 21

Additional vocabulary

Italian	English
l’alta stagione	high season (tourism)
la bassa stagione	low season (tourism)
il cambio di stagione	the change of season
fa bel tempo	it’s nice weather
fa caldo / fa freddo	it’s hot / it’s cold
nevica / piove	it’s snowing / it’s raining

This seasons vocabulary directly complements the months of the year in Italian and the days of the week in Italian for precisely situating a date or a period.