olá
Portuguese, interjection
olá is spelled O-L-Á (3 letters) and appears 81 times per million words in written Portuguese, the 1,196th most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Olá is a Portuguese interjection meaning “hello; hi (greeting)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, ola is a different word: “wave (a group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through…”. The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “usa-se ao encontrar alguém, como saudação”.
What does olá mean in English?
interjection
- 1
hello; hi (greeting)
noun
- 1
femininewave (a group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit)
suffix
- 1
femininemasculineindicates a diminutive, sometimes pejorative
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
interjection: 1. usa-se ao encontrar alguém, como saudação 2. também pode ser dito para chamar a atenção
noun: 1. coreografia de torcidas em que os torcedores se levantam em sequência, como uma onda 2. redemoinho nas águas 3. buraco cilíndrico que pela ação da erosão das águas é cavado nos penedos do leito de um rio
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.
Forms of olá
- olas plural
- holá alternative obsolete
Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to olá
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is olá in Portuguese?
olá appears 81 times per million words in written Portuguese.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).