Colours

Colours in Portuguese are adjectives. Apart from a few exceptions, they change in number and gender to match the noun they refer to.

As a general rule, the masculine singular form ends in ‘-o,’ and the feminine singular form ends in ‘-a.’ For plural, we add ‘-s.’ Here is an example with the colour black:

Preto (black)

• 🧥 Masculine singular ➔ O casaco é preto. (The coat is black.)
• Feminine singular ➔ A camisola é preta. (The sweater is black.)
• 🧥 Masculine plural ➔ Os casacos são pretos. (The coats are black.)
• Feminine plural ➔ As camisolas são pretas. (The sweaters are black.)

Exceptions to this rule are:

• ‘verde’ (green) and ‘azul’ (blue), which only change in the plural to ‘verdes’ and ‘azuis.’
  • 👖 Gosto mais das calças verdes. (I like the green trousers better.)
  • 👀 Ela tem os olhos azuis. (She has blue eyes.)
• ‘cor -de- rosa’ (pink) and ‘cor de laranja’ (orange) maintain the same form. It’s also possible to refer to ‘pink’ and ‘orange’ as ‘rosa’ and ‘laranja’ respectively.
  • 👖 As calças são cor de laranja. (The trousers are orange.)
  • 🏠 Aquelas casas são cor-de-rosa. (Those houses over there are pink.)

🧐 Note that ‘cor-de-rosa’ is written with a hyphen while ‘cor de laranja’ has no hyphen.