cegas

Cegas is the feminine plural form of the Portuguese adjective cego, meaning blind. It can describe women who are blind or be used, in some contexts, as a noun to refer to blind women. The masculine counterparts are cegos (plural) and cego (singular). Cegas is commonly seen in phrases that describe groups of women who are blind or in idiomatic expressions such as às cegas, which means “blindly” or “without information.” In standard usage, the neuter sense of the term is avoided in formal contexts, and more precise terms such as cegueira (blindness) or o cego/a cega (the blind man/the blind woman) are preferred.

Etymology traces cegas to the Latin caecus, with typical evolution into the Portuguese adjective and its feminine plural form. The related forms follow regular gender and number inflection in Portuguese: cego, cegos, cega, cegas.

Usage notes: As an adjective, cegas agrees in gender and number with the noun it describes. As a noun in some regional uses, it can refer to blind women, though this is less common in formal writing, where o cego/a cega or pessoas cegas are more typical. The idiom às cegas is widely recognized and used to describe acting without knowledge or visibility.

See also: cegueira (blindness), cego (blind person), cega (feminine noun form).