meia

Portuguese

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

 
  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˈmej.ɐ/ [ˈmeɪ̯.ɐ]
    • (Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /ˈmej.a/ [ˈmeɪ̯.a]
 

  • Rhymes: -ejɐ, (Portugal) -ɐjɐ
  • Hyphenation: mei‧a
  • (file)

Etymology 1

From Old Galician-Portuguese meya, from Latin media, feminine of medius (middle; half), from Proto-Indo-European *medʰyo- (between). Doublet of média.

Noun

meia f (plural meias)

  1. sock (covering for the foot; originally short form of meia-calça)
    Synonyms: (Rio Grande do Sul) carpim, (Portugal) peúga
  2. (Brazil) Ellipsis of meia-entrada. (a ticket sold for half its normal price, as required by law, for students and children)
    Synonym: meia-entrada
  3. (Portugal, historical) obsolete unit of measure for liquids, equivalent to six pints
  4. (when reading a time) half past (short form of meia hora)
    O evento termina às três e meia.
    The event ends at half past three.
Derived terms
  • meia elástica

Noun

meia m or f by sense (plural meias)

  1. (Brazil, soccer) midfielder
    Synonyms: (Portugal) médio, meio-campista

Adjective

meia

  1. feminine singular of meio
Descendants
  • Kadiwéu: meeya

Adverb

meia

  1. (hypercorrect) Misconstruction of meio
    Estou *meia cansada.I'm a bit tired.
Usage notes
  • The word meia, as an adverb, appears in vulgar speech because of a confusion about the role of meio. In this case, whenever meio, as an adverb, lies right before a feminine adjective, it is confused for an adjective as well, hence hypercorrected into the feminine declension meia. In standard speech, however, Portuguese adverbs are never inflected by grammatical gender.

Numeral

meia

  1. (Brazil) six (6, used instead of seis when it’s necessary to avoid confusion with rhyme três; short form of meia dúzia)
    Synonyms: meia-dúzia, seis

Further reading

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

meia

  1. inflection of mear:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.