/kon-shtee-puh-sow/
🚫 English speakers think: Constipation (digestive problem)
✅ Actually means: A cold (the illness)
This is arguably the most dangerous false friend in the entire language. Walk into a pharmacy and confidently announce you are constipado, and the pharmacist will hand you tissues and Vitamin C, leaving your actual problem… decidedly unsolved.
Example in Context
“Estou constipado desde ontem.” → “I’ve had a cold since yesterday.”
How to say “Constipated”
If you actually have the digestive issue, the term you need is prisão de ventre (literally “prison of the belly”).
- Tenho prisão de ventre. → “I am constipated.”
Related False Friend
Portuguese is full of these traps. Just like you don’t want to mix up your illnesses, you definitely don’t want to insult a chef by calling their food esquisito when you actually meant “exquisite.”
Or what if you are trying to say ‘actually’? Think it’s atualmente? Think again.
Memory Trick
Imagine Constipação refers to your nose being blocked up, not… the other part.