capanga

capanga

English

Etymology

From Portuguese capanga.

Noun

capanga (plural capangas)

1. A thug or bodyguard in Brazil.
   • 1984, Helen R. Lane, translating Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World, Folio Society 2012, p. 208:

     She saw six armed riders: she could tell, by the way they were dressed and by the clearly visible brand of the same hacienda on the flanks of all their horses, that they were capangas and not cangaceiros or Rural Police.

   • 1986, Errol Lincoln Uys, Brazil, p. 730:

     He had never actually killed a man, though the peasants spoke of at least ten sent to their graves by Joazinho, a reputation the capanga did nothing to discourage.

   • 2010, Nikolas Kozloff, No Rain in the Amazon, p. 163:

     Feared by the workers, the capangas intimidate laborers and driver off small farmers with bulldozers.

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Portuguese

Noun

capanga m (plural capangas)

1. thug (a criminal hired to treat others violently or roughly)

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Spanish

Noun

capanga m (plural capangas)

1. (slang, Argentina) boss, foreman

Further reading

• “capanga”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014