Portuguese

Noun

caroçama f (plural caroçamas)

1. (Brazil, rare) an excessive amount of hard fruit seeds, or of growths (abnormal masses, such as a tumours)
   • 1952, João Simões Lopes Neto, Casos do Romualdo: contos gauchescos, Martins Livreiro, Page 44:

     Naturalmente, cada ano as raízes da figueira cresciam e enterravam e afogavam essa — caroçama — que desaparecia.

     Naturally, every year the fig tree’s roots would grow and bury and drown this — mass of seeds — which would disappear.

   • 1962, Francisco Martins, Clarão na Serra, Edições Melhoramentos, page 181:

     Pegou doença ruim, de apodrecer o corpo, e ninguém queria saber dele pois a cara do coitado era uma caroçama feia, que Deus me livre e perdoe!

     He caught a bad disease, which rots the body, and nobody wanted to have anything to do with him because the poor fellow’s face was an ugly mass of growths, God forbid!

   • 1962, Valdomiro Silveira, Dirce Côrtes Riedel, Os caboclos: contos, Editôra Civilização Brasileira, page 11:

     […] , curara o gôgo das chumbungas, queimara a caroçama dos frangos índios: tinha-lhe tanta confiança, mal comparando, como a que tinha em Deus.

     […] , had cured the turkeys’ gapes, burned the gamecocks’ growth mass : he had as much trust in him, comparing badly, as he had in God.

Synonyms

• caroçame

Related terms