Meaning of dedo em riste, tirar o pé, dar pitaco e treze

Meaning of dedo em riste, tirar o pé, dar pitaco e treze in Portuguese

Hello there and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips 81, called meaning of dedo em riste, tirar o pé, dar pitaco e treze

On today’s episode, we are going to learn the meaning of dedo em riste, tirar o pé, dar pitaco and treze.

C’mon, let’s get started!

Click on the link to visit our previous episode to see the meaning of tamo junto, querer confete, mãos à obra and so forth

Dedo em riste

Yeah, we don’t always talk about slang here. Dedo em riste is a formal expression that people use to point fingers at someone. This is a “warning finger”. They normally use the warning finger, when they are gesturing angry at the other person.

Let’s see some examples:

• Você não precisa ficar com o dedo em riste. Estou te ouvindo! (There’s no need this warning finger! I’m listening to you.)
• Ele chegou gritando, com o dedo em riste. (He came up screaming and with his finger in the air!)

Tirar o pé

Now we’re talking about slang again. Tirar o pé is a expression that comes from soccer. Just imagine that there are two avid players battling a ball in a move.  At the right moment, one of them takes his foot of the ball. He tira o pé da bola. I mean, in order to not get hurt, the player hesitates. Nowadays, we use this expression meaning to go easy on something.  See:

• Estou tirando o pé agora nas festas de fim de ano. (I’m taking it easy now with the holidays).
• Quando vi que eu estava trabalhando quase sozinho naquele escritório, tirei um pouco o pé. (When I realized that I was working almost alone at the office, I started to do the same)

Dar pitaco

Dar pitaco is another informal expression in Brazilian Portuguese. That means giving your own opinion on something that doesn’t suit you. Here in Brazil we also say “falar sem ser chamado”.

For instance:

– Pare de dar pitaco por aqui! (Stop speaking about something we didn’t ask you to!)

– Pare de falar sem ser chamado! (Stop speaking about something we didn’t ask you to.)

Treze

I was doing a research to find out where the meaning of this expression comes from. See, treze literally means thirteen in Portuguese. I realized this is a military code; this is a military jargon to designate people who have inappropriate behavior in some situations.

Over time, the expression began to mean a completely crazy person. Nowadays, people use it so often, but to be honest with you, I didn’t know its real meaning.

• Ela quebrou todos os pratos da casa: completamente treze! (She broke all the dishes in the house. She is completely crazy).

– Que cara treze! Vinha dirigindo na contramão.  (What a crazy guy! He was driving the wrong way)

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Click on the link to see the meaning of a few informal expressions in Portuguese

That’s enough for today.

I hope you like it!

See you next time.

Thanks!

Marcos Sales

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