casar

Casar is a Portuguese verb meaning to marry or to unite in marriage. It can be used transitively to indicate marrying someone or in the pronominal form to indicate getting married oneself. The word is common in both everyday and formal contexts, and it appears in a range of constructions, including civil and religious ceremonies, as well as figurative uses.

In grammar, casar is a regular -ar verb. Its principal parts are casar (infinitive), casando (gerund), and casado (past participle). For example, in the present tense: eu caso, tu casas, ele/ela casa, nós casamos, eles/elas casam. The reflexive form, casar-se, is used to express the act of getting married: eles vão se casar; ela quer se casar. When specifying the partner, the construction is casar-se com alguém: “Eles vão se casar com Ana” or “Ela pretende se casar com ele.”

Common uses and nuances include the distinction between casar (to marry someone) and casar-se (to get married oneself). The related noun is casamento (the act or ceremony of marriage). Adjectives include casado (married) and solteiro (single). In addition to its literal meaning, casar can appear in figurative phrases to signal compatibility or fitting together, such as “as propostas não se casam” (the proposals do not fit together).

Casar is widely used across Portuguese-speaking regions, with minor regional variations in conjugation and preference for informal or formal registers.