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Re: Presas...
I wonder if this could be toponymic in origin. Presas is also a Spanish surname. The Spanish vocabulary word has the same or similar meanings to those given above for the Portuguese, but also has the meaning "ditch" or "channel". There is a minor Spanish place name, Las Presas (Cantabria).
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It could be, but I'm not familiar with that usage, since I didn't know of that meaning in Spanish (if there's one like that in Portuguese, then it's very obscure). There is represa (and subsequently represas), though, which means dam(s), as in some sort of man-made structure preventing the water in rivers from flowing naturally.
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