pelos
Portuguese, contraction
pelos is spelled P-E-L-O-S (5 letters) and appears 417 times per million words in written Portuguese, the 223rd most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Pelos is a Portuguese masculine contraction meaning “contraction of por + os, literally “by/through the (masculine plural)”: masculine plural of pelo” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a plural of pelo. With an accent, pêlos is a different word: “plural of pêlo”. The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “contração da preposição «per» com o artigo «ou», o pronome «[o]» ou «lo»”.
What does pelos mean in English?
contraction
- 1
masculinecontraction of por + os, literally “by/through the (masculine plural)”: masculine plural of pelo
noun
- 1
masculineplural of pelo
noun
- 1
plural of pêlo
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
contraction: 1. contração da preposição «per» com o artigo «ou», o pronome «[o]» ou «lo»
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 pelos
- plos alternative syncope
Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is pelos in Portuguese?
pelos appears 417 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).