avô

From Old Galician-Portuguese avoo, from Vulgar Latin *av(i)olum, ultimately from Latin avus, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwh₂os (“grandfather”). Cognate with Spanish abuelo.

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• Rhymes: -o
• Hyphenation: a‧vô

avô m (plural avôs, feminine avó, feminine plural avós)

1. grandfather, male grandparent

   Synonyms: vô, (Brazil, endearing) vovô

   Coordinate term: avó

Avô has two plural forms, avôs and avós. The former (os avôs) means exclusively a group of two or more men (cf. English grandfathers), the latter (os avós) is used for a group of both men and women (cf. English grandparents). Both are masculine nouns. The plural of avó (grandmother) is a regular feminine noun (as avós) and means grandmothers. This is one of the few Portuguese nouns that have a tripartite plural inflection, the others being sogro, consogro, tio-avô, bisavô and other derived terms.

• neto (“grandson”)
• neta (“granddaughter”)

• “avô”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025
• “avô”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025