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ArchivesRe: Presas...
in reply to a message by designergirl
Presas is a word in feminine plural form and could mean one of three things in Portuguese: prey, arrested/tied/stuck (as in 'two women were arrested' - "duas mulheres foram presas" or 'we're stuck' - "estamos presas"), or claws/sharp teeth/fangs.
I've never seen it used as a surname, but if I had to guess which of the three meanings is the one you want, I'd say it's the last one, since it seems to make more sense than the other two.
I've never seen it used as a surname, but if I had to guess which of the three meanings is the one you want, I'd say it's the last one, since it seems to make more sense than the other two.
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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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