Embiggification

If there’s one thing Portugal is not, it’s Texas. Portugal is Portugal, Texas is Texas. How many times must I repeat this, people?

While Texas prides itself on everything being bigger there, european portuguese uses a lot of diminutive endings “inho” and “inha”, at least in conversational use. This doesn’t usually mean the thing they’re talking about is actually small (although it might be), it’s just a way of speaking, and it makes the sentence sound more natural and polished. The opposite phenomenon, augmentative endings, are rarer and the way they are formed is more variable than the diminutive, so they need a little more work to remember. So… let’s Texanise our Portuguese for a bit and look at this list “(from “A Actualidade em Português”)

Where the word is highlighted in red, the augmented form has changed gender from feminine to masculine, and blue highlighting indicates the opposite. Predictably, the former is more common than the latter.

Standard	Translation	Augmented	Translation
Casa	House	Casarão	Big house
Rocha	Rock	Rochedo	Big rock
Barulho	Noise	Barulhão	Big noise*
Voz	Voice	Vozeirão	(Someone who has a) loud voice
Porta	Door	Portão	Big door, main door of a building
Sala	Room	Salão	Big room especially in a commercial space – eg, dance hall or showroom
Faca	Knife	Facalhão/Facão**	Big knife, machete
Camisola	Jumper	Camisolão	Big jumper
Homem	Man	Homenzarrão	Large man
Mulher	Woman	Mulherona	Large woman
Boca	Mouth	Boqueirão	Large mouth (has several geographical uses – eg a river mouth, hole in the ground, gap between mountains)
Prato	Plate	Pratalhão	Big plate, dish
Chuva	Rain	Chuvada	Downpour
Cadeira	Chair	Cadeirão	Big chair
Copo	Drinking glass	Copão	Big drinking glass
Peito	Chest	Peitaça/Peitaço***	Big/strong chest
Sábio	Wise person	Sabichão****	Great, wise one
Pata	Paw, hoof, animal foot	Patorra	Big paw, big foot
Cão	Dog	Cãozarrão	Big dog
Rapaz	Boy	Rapagão/Rapazão	Chonky Boi, absolute unit

*=This one is in the book but not in Priberam so I guess not standard.

**=Faca has two forms, one of which stays feminine and the other switches to masculine. The first is the one given in the book, but the second is definitely used and is given in priberam

***=Peito has two forms, one feminine and one masculine. Despite what you might think, that’s not because one is used for a woman’s chest and one for a man’s; they’re synonyms. Peitaça is more common and can be used for a man’s swole pecs without implying he has a nice rack, and that makes it interesting because it’s the only example where the supersizing results in a word going from masculine to feminine. Neither of them seems particularly common though, and in fact if you google it you’ll mostly find brazilian websites with ornate breastplates, which isn’t a meaning given in Priberam so I guess it must be specific to the Brazilian variant

****=Informal, often ironic, mocking