desçamos

Desçamos is a verb form in Portuguese, functioning as the first-person plural of the present subjunctive of the verb descer, which means to descend or go down. In this mood, it appears in clauses that express doubt, desire, necessity, possibility, or hypothetical situations. It is more common in formal writing or careful speech than in everyday conversation, where speakers often substitute a different construction such as vamos descer or a subordinate clause with the present indicative.

Usage notes include that desçamos is used after expressions that require the subjunctive, for example: “É necessário que desçamos as escadas com cuidado.” and “Se desçarmos agora, chegaremos a tempo.” The form is also the recommended nós form in the present subjunctive, contrasted with desçam (eles) and desça (ele/ela), as well as with the imperfect and other tenses of the verb. In colloquial speech, the corresponding imperative sense is frequently conveyed by means of vamos descer rather than the subjunctive desçamos, though desçamos can occur in literary or formal contexts as a direct exhortation: “Desçamos!”.

Conjugation overview: present subjunctive forms include eu desça, tu desças, ele desça, nós desçamos, vós desçais, eles desçam. The spelling uses the cedilla in desçamos to preserve the soft /s/ sound before a, o, or u, reflecting regular Portuguese orthography after historical phonological changes.

Etymology: descer derives from Latin descendere, with the prefix de- and the root scend-; the Portuguese spelling preserves the cedilla to indicate the /s/ sound before front vowels.