saravá
Portuguese, interjection
saravá is spelled S-A-R-A-V-Á (6 letters) and appears about once in every 6 million words in written Portuguese, the 77,804th most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Saravá is a Portuguese interjection meaning “Used as a greeting, especially by adherents to Afro-Brazilian religions” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, sarava is a different word: “first/third-person singular imperfect indicative of sarar”. The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “forma de saudação utilizada por seguidores de religiões afro-brasileiras; salve”.
What does saravá mean in English?
interjection
- 1
BrazilUsed as a greeting, especially by adherents to Afro-Brazilian religions.
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular imperfect indicative of sarar
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
interjection: 1. forma de saudação utilizada por seguidores de religiões afro-brasileiras; salve
verb: 1. terceira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo sarar
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 saravá
- saravá! canonical
Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is saravá in Portuguese?
saravá appears about once in every 6 million words in written Portuguese.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).