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PORTUGUESE · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pelo.

hair (filament which grows on the skin of mammals), except hair on top of humans’ heads, which is called cabelo

4 characters2 syllables approx.Português language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpe.lu/Brazil/ˈpe.lu/Portugal
  1. hair (filament which grows on the skin of mammals), except hair on top of humans’ heads, which is called cabelo

    masculine
    O adolescente ficou feliz quando viu nascer os primeiros pelos do seu bigode.
  2. hair; fur (an animal’s hair as a whole)

    masculine
    Preciso cortar o pelo do meu gato.
  3. any filament which grows on plants and non-mammals

    broadly · masculine · proscribed
    Pelos de tarântula.
    Não toques no pelo de uma urtiga.
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese pelo, from Latin pilus, from Proto-Indo-European *pil-. The retention of single Latin /l/ in intervocalic position is irregular and may be the product of analogy with the near-synonym cabelo < Latin capillus.

contraction/pe.lu/Brazil/pe.lu/Portugal/plu/Portugal
  1. contraction of por + o; by the; for the; through the

    abbreviation · alt-of · contraction
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese pello, from Vulgar Latin *per (“by; through”) + *lo (“the”).

verb/ˈpɛ.lu/Brazil/ˈpɛ.lu/Portugal
  1. first-person singular present indicative of pelar

    first-person · form-of · indicative · present · singular
Where this word comes from

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

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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.