chegou

Chegou is a form of the Portuguese verb chegar, meaning it is the preterite (simple past) third-person singular of the verb, used to indicate that someone or something arrived or reached a destination in the past. In everyday usage, chegou typically translates to “he arrived,” “she arrived,” or the formal “you arrived” in Brazilian Portuguese when the subject is you, as in você chegou or o senhor chegou. In European Portuguese, the form is likewise used with ele/ela and with formal você or semelhantes, while the second-person singular familiar tu would use chegaste.

Grammatically, chegar is a regular -ar verb with a spelling adjustment in the first-person singular preterite: eu cheguei, to preserve the soft g sound before the -e. The full preterite indicative paradigm for chegar is: eu cheguei, tu chegaste, ele chegou, nós chegamos, vós chegastes, eles chegaram. The form chegou is specifically the third-person singular. Chegou can also appear in compound tenses with a participle, as in ele tinha chegado (he had arrived).

Semantic usage extends beyond physical arrival to figurative senses such as time or opportunities arriving, as in chegou a hora (the time has come) or chegou o momento de agir (the moment has come to act). The word is widely used across Lusophone contexts, including Brazil and Portugal, and also appears in idiomatic expressions and literary styles.

Past participle: chegado; present participle: chegando. Related forms support a range of tenses and voices in the Portuguese verb system.