Colours in Portuguese are more than just visual delights – they hold linguistic nuances that reflect the gendered essence of the language. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the fascinating palette of as cores em Português, exploring their gender associations and providing practical examples to aid your language journey.
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In Portuguese, the colours dynamically align with the gender of nouns. Most colours have a masculine and a feminine form, creating a harmonious linguistic symphony. Let’s explore how this works, by first looking at what the colour names are. You’ll note that the colour names are always referred to in the masculine:
Classic Colours
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vermelho (red)
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cor de laranja (orange)*
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amarelo (yellow)
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verde (green)
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azul (blue)*
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roxo (purple)
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cor de rosa (pink)
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castanho (brown)
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preto (black)
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branco (white)
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cinzento (grey)
Other Colours
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fúscia (fuscia)*
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violeta (violet)*
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lilás (lilac)
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anil (indigo)*
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índigo (indigo)*
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cor de vinho (red wine colour)*
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bordô (burgundy)*
Metalic Colours
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dourado (golden)
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prateado (silver)
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cromado (chrome)
For other metallic colours you can add the word metalizado:
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metalizado (metallic colour)
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azul metalizado (metallic blue)
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verde metalizado (metallic green)
Colours in Portuguese: Gender and number agreement
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O meu carro é cinzento. (My car is grey)
Carro is masculine so the colour grey is masculine here.
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Ela tem uma saia cinzenta. (She has a grey skirt.)
Saia is feminine so the colour grey is feminine here.
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Gosto de maçãs vermelhas. (I like red apples)
Maçãs are feminine and plural so the colour red is feminine and plural here.
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Ele tem sapatos vermelhos. (He has red shoes.)
Sapatos are masculine and plural so the colour red is masculine and plural here.
When Gender or Number doesn’t Agree
The colours I’ve mentioned above are signalled with an asterisk (*) don’t change gender, however, some of them may become plural. Below I’ll show some examples of the most common colours:
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azul (blue – singular)
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Ela tem uma casa azul. (She has a blue house)
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azuis (blue – plural)
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Ele tem duas bicicletas azuis. (He has two blue bicycles)
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verde (green – singular)
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Ele tem um chapéu verde. (He has a green hat.)
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verdes (green – plural)
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Ela tem umas calças verdes. (She has green trousers.)
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cor de rosa (pink)
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Ela gosta de roupas cor de rosa. (She likes pink clothes.)
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Ele tem uma camisa cor de rosa. (He has a pink shirt.)
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Nós temos um barco cor de rosa. (We have a pink boat.)
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Nós temos muitos lápis cor de rosa. (We have many pink pencils)
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cor de laranja (orange)
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Eles têm uns ténis cor de laranja. (They have orange runners/trainers/sneakers)
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Elas viram umas flores cor de laranja. (They saw some orange flowers)
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Tu tens um copo cor de laranja. (You have an orange cup/glass.)
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Eu tenho uma caixa cor de laranja. (I have an orange box.
