pelas
Portuguese, contraction
pelas is spelled P-E-L-A-S (5 letters) and appears 240 times per million words in written Portuguese, the 386th most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Pelas is a Portuguese feminine contraction meaning “contraction of por + as, literally “by/through the (feminine plural)”: feminine plural of pelo” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a second-person singular present indicative of pelar. With an accent, pélas is a different word: “second-person singular present indicative of pelar”. The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “feminino plural de pelo”.
What does pelas mean in English?
contraction
- 1
femininecontraction of por + as, literally “by/through the (feminine plural)”: feminine plural of pelo
verb
- 1
second-person singular present indicative of pelar
verb
- 1
second-person singular present indicative of pelar
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
contraction: 1. feminino plural de pelo
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 pelas
- plas alternative syncope
Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is pelas in Portuguese?
pelas appears 240 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).