derrubaste

Derrubaste is the second-person singular preterite form of the Portuguese verb derrubar, meaning you knocked down, toppled, or overthrew something in the past. It is used when addressing someone informally with the pronoun tu, and it appears in varieties of Portuguese that retain the tu form, notably in Portugal and some regions of Brazil.

In European Portuguese and in informal Brazilian Portuguese communities that use tu, derrubaste corresponds to the past action of knocking down an object or overcoming a barrier. In most Brazilian Portuguese varieties, where the pronoun você is common, the corresponding past tense form is derrubou (third person).

Grammatical notes: derrubar is a regular -ar verb. The second-person singular preterite ending is -aste, producing derrubaste. Other forms of derrubar include eu derrubei, tu derrubaste, ele/ela/você derrubou, nós derrubámos, eles/elas/vocês derrubaram.

Usage considerations: Because derrubaste encodes the tú form, its occurrence signals informal direct address. In contexts where the tú form is not used, writers typically replace it with the appropriate third-person or formal second-person form.

Examples:

- Tu derrubaste a cerca com um empurrão.

- Ontem, derrubaste a porta ao entrar apressadamente.

See also: derrubar, conjugation of Portuguese verbs, Portuguese verb tenses.