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PORTUGUESE · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

favela.

a tree of species Cnidoscolus quercifolius, native to northeastern Brazil

6 characters3 syllables approx.Português language

Meaning & usage

noun/faˈvɛ.lɐ/Brazil/fɐˈvɛ.lɐ/Portugal/fɐˈbɛ.lɐ/Northern, Portugal[fɐˈβɛ.lɐ]Northern, Portugal
  1. a tree of species Cnidoscolus quercifolius, native to northeastern Brazil

    feminine
  2. slum (dilapidated neighborhood)

    Brazil · feminine
Where this word comes from

The slum sense is named after the tree. The first favela was founded by veterans of the War of Canudos on Morro da Providência (Providence Hill). That hill was similar to a hill where a battle took place during the war, which had many favela trees. The name of the tree probably comes ultimately from a diminutive of Latin faba (“bean”). An alternative etymology may be favo + -ela.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.