aguâ

See also: agua, água, aguá, and aguà

Macanese

Etymology

Uncertain. Possibly from Portuguese a voar (“flying”), with an unexplained /v/ → /g/ shift.[1] Likely unrelated to Portuguese aguar.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /aˈɡwa/

Verb

aguâ (participle aguando)

  1. to fly
    Pastro tâ aguâ
    The bird is flying
  2. (idiomatic, of time) to fly by (to pass very quickly)
    Semana aguá, vem vai.
    Weeks fly by, they come and go.
  3. to run quickly[2]
    aguâ vai riva ― to run up quickly

Usage notes
  • Unrelated to Portuguese água or its Macanese descendant águ (“water”).
  • Note the intrusive -n- in the participle, possibly to differentiate between it and aguado (“diluted, liquefied”).

References
  1. Batalha, Graciete Nogueira (1988) “aguar”, in Glossário do dialecto macaense: notas linguísticas, etnográficas e folclóricas [Glossary of the Macanese dialect: linguistic, ethnographic and folkloric notes], Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, page 152
  2. https://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm#a
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