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O Tanas

Obscure Vocabulary Break!

What the heck is a “Tanas”? Well, as it happens, that’s the wrong question. The word does exist and it means a sort of useless, indecisive person, but “O tanas” is also an exclamation indicating disagreement or disbelief, so something like “That’s what you think” or “No way!”, or, of you’re in a hurry, “Bollocks!”

It seems to hardly appear online. Priberam defines it but Linguee doesn’t know about it at all, so I’d say probably not one to whip out in the supermarket.

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Just a data nerd

One thought on “O Tanas

  1. Porque não? Não aparece no Linguee porque a base de dados desta ferramenta é o português formal (não incluindo o literário) onde não se usa nunca frases deste tipo. É perfeitamente possível usar “o tanas” em discurso coloquial, informal (no supermercado). É, no entanto, antiquado.

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