Decoding names for people who don’t eat much. The list is from an article by Miguel Esteves Cardoso, reproduced in Português em Foco
- Debiqueiro – “que ou o que debicar“. Debicar means peck, so this is a person who pecks at their food, which is a familiar idea of course.
- Furão – literally this means a ferret, but figuratively can be a person with a pointed nose, a curious person (“nosy”, so fits with the last meaning!) and also a person who doesn’t eat much. I’m not really sure how ferrets became associated with abstemiousness, but OK.
- Lambisqueiro – I’d seen the word “lambiscar“, from which this is derived, before and always assumed it was related to lamber (“to lick”) and maybe it is, but there’s no reference to licking in the definition; lambiscar just means “comer pouco“
- Languinhento – according to priberam, this can mean wet, sticky, or listless, so I guess this is just more in the way of implying that a person who doesn’t eat much won’t be strong and sturdy.
- Penisqueiro – derived from peniscar, which sounds like a name for a red lamborghini, but actually is just a verb roughly synonymous with lambiscar, meaning comer pouco.
He also uses plenty of words like “estranho” and “esquisito” (basically “weird”) and also talks about “fastio” to describe a person’s “repugnância pelo alimento” or “falta de apetite”
Luso 