-ico
Portuguese, suffix
-ico is spelled I-C-O (3 letters) and appears about once in every 4 million words in written Portuguese, the 64,064th most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). -ico is a Portuguese masculine suffix meaning “-ic; -ical of or relating to” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). On this page, iço is a different word: “first-person singular present indicative of içar”. The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “formador de diminutivos, em geral pejorativo”.
What does -ico mean in English?
suffix
- 1
-ic; -ical of or relating to
suffix
- 1
masculineirregular diminutive suffix, often forming new senses rather than semantic diminutives
burro (“donkey”) + -ico → burrico (“small donkey”)
suffix
- 1
adjective-forming suffix
verb
- 1
first-person singular present indicative of içar
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
suffix: 1. formador de diminutivos, em geral pejorativo
suffix: 1. formador erudito de adjetivos proparoxítonos com sentido de: relação, participação ou referência 2. indicador dos oxiácidos em que o elemento tem a mais alta de duas valências, como em alumínico, fosfórico, etc.
noun: 1. município brasileiro do estado do Ceará
suffix: 1. forma pelo comum adjetivos sobre base nominal 2. forma substantivos com significação ou matiz temporal
The definition in the Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário), in Portuguese.
Source: Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
English words that translate to -ico
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is -ico in Portuguese?
-ico appears about once in every 4 million words in written Portuguese.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).