An Italian title of honor equivalent to 'highness,' used to address members of royal or noble families.
From Italian altezza, derived from Latin altus (high). This is the Italian equivalent of Spanish alteza, maintaining the Latin root while adopting Italian phonetic and morphological patterns.
Italian and Spanish have nearly identical words (altezza/alteza) because both Romance languages evolved directly from Latin, creating these 'false cognates' that are actually the same word in different linguistic clothing.
Altezza (Italian 'Highness') uses feminine noun form (altezza) for all royalty historically, embedding gender into formal address. Italian maintained this pattern across centuries, encoding an assumption that formal/ceremonial language carried feminine marking regardless of the addressee's sex.
Use 'Altezza' with modifiers that match the person's identity ('Sua Altezza Serenissima'). Modern Italian usage follows the individual's self-identification, not assumed gender.
["Altezza Reale","Sua Maestà","title + name"]
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.