-zinho

Portuguese

Etymology

From -z- +‎ -inho.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈzĩ.ɲu/ [ˈzĩ.j̃u]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈzĩ.ɲu/ [ˈzĩ.j̃u]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈzi.ɲo/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈzi.ɲu/

• Rhymes: -iɲu, (Brazil) -ĩɲu
• Hyphenation: zi‧nho

Suffix

-zinho m (noun-forming suffix, plural -zinhos, feminine -zinha, feminine plural -zinhas) (attached to masculine nouns)
-zinho (adjective-forming suffix, feminine -zinha, masculine plural -zinhos, feminine plural -zinhas) (attached to adjectives)

1. variant of -inho, used especially when the preceding letter is a semivowel or when the word is an oxytone

   Antonym: -zão

   ‎pá (“shovel”) + ‎-zinha → ‎pazinha (“small shovel”)

   ‎café (“coffee”) + ‎-zinho → ‎cafezinho (“small cup of coffee”)

   ‎eu (“I”) + ‎-zinho → ‎euzinho (“I … myself”)

   • 2022 November 1, Manuel Henriques Carvalho, ““TAP pode ser TAPzinha se IAG comprar a empresa” [“TAP can become little TAP if the company is bought by IAG.”]”, in Observador‎^[1]:

Usage notes

• Traditionally, this suffix attaches to words with stress on the last syllable, while those ending in unstressed -o, -a or -e use -inho (or -inha for feminine words). Increasingly, however, this rule is being broken, and pairs like alicatinho and alicatezinho (based on alicate (“pliers”)), gritinho and gritozinho (based on grito (“scream”)), and hortinha and hortazinha (based on horta (“vegetable garden”)) are found.
• -zinho is a cyclic suffix, and the preceding component maintains its own stressed syllable (which is downgraded to secondary stress but maintains its vowel quality unchanged). The endings -o and -e after the preceding component are treated as word-final, hence e.g. alicatezinho is pronounced /a.liˌka.t͡ʃiˈzĩ.ɲu/ in Brazil.

Derived terms

Portuguese terms suffixed with -zinho