Ways to say it
| Italian | Note |
|---|---|
| benvenuto! | masculine |
| benvenuta! | feminine |
| benvenuti! | plural |
| benvenute! | feminine, plural |
This greeting is used when someone arrives. If you wish to refer to the act of greeting someone's arrival as a noun, you can use accoglienza. To express that something is free to enjoy, the related word is libero.
What does it mean word for word?
The word benvenuto is a combination of bene, meaning "well" and venuto, meaning "come".
Which one should you use?
The form you choose depends on the gender and number of the people you are welcoming. Use benvenuto! for a single male and benvenuta! for a single female. Use benvenuti! when welcoming a group of men or a mixed-gender group, and use benvenute! specifically for a group consisting only of women.
Related words
How does it change in a sentence?
The forms must agree with the people being addressed: benvenuto! is the masculine singular, benvenuta! is the feminine singular, benvenuti! is the masculine plural and benvenute! is the feminine plural. Additionally, the phrase Siete i benvenuti is used when welcoming a group or multiple individuals.
Did you know?
- While benvenuto is a greeting for arrivals, it is never used to say 'you are welcome' in response to 'thank you'. For that, Italians use prego, which literally means 'I pray'.
- To say 'welcome back', the word benvenuto is completely replaced by bentornato, which swaps the root for 'come' with the root for 'returned'.
- The gender agreement in benvenuto is so strict that even in a large crowd of ninety-nine women, a single man entering the room would change the greeting to the masculine plural benvenuti.
Examples in context
- Benvenuto!Welcome.This example shows how to use the masculine singular form benvenuto!Tatoeba #373298 by Guybrush88, translation #138919 by CM
- Benvenuto! Finalmente sei arrivato.Welcome! You have finally arrived.
- 3 more sentences on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Martina greets Alessandro at her front door.
- MartinaCiao Alessandro, benvenuto!Hi Alessandro, welcome!
- AlessandroGrazie mille, Martina.Thanks a lot, Martina.
- MartinaEntra pure, prego.Please, come in.
- AlessandroChe bella casa!What a beautiful house!
Sources
- Wiktionary, “welcome” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
