Diminutives

Diminutivos

In Spanish, suffixes called diminutives can be added to nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and names to indicate smallness, as well as other ideas such as affection, humor, pity, irony, or ridicule. In this way, you can say that something is little without adding an adjective like pequeño to indicate smallness or querido to indicate affection.

Diminutives change to match the gender and number of the word they modify.  Common Spanish diminutives:

masculine	-ito	-cito	-ecito
feminine	-illo	-cillo	-ecillo

Basically there are two different diminutives, –ito and –illo, but other letters may need to be added depending on what the modified word ends in.

1. For most words, including those that end in any vowel other than E, drop the final vowel and add –ito or –illo:

ahora	now		ahorita	right now
hermano	brother		hermanito	little brother
Juana	Jean		Juanita	Jeannie

2. Words with more than one syllable that end in E, N, R, or a stressed vowel take –cito or –cillo:

una joven	young girl		jovencita	young lady (endearing)
mamá	mama		mamacita	mommy
pintor	painter		pintorcito	third-rate painter
pobre	poor		pobrecito	poor little thing

3. Words with one syllable that end in a consonant take –ecito or –ecillo:

flor	flower		florecita	little flower
pan	bread		panecillo	roll

There are also some spelling changes related to diminutives, which are similar to those that occur with spelling-change verbs and noun plurals (learn more):

chica	girl		chiquita	little girl
Diego	James		Dieguito	Jimmy
pedazo	piece		pedacito	little piece

 Related lessons

• Augmentatives
• Intensifiers