What does “orelha de couve-flor” mean in Portuguese?
Brigalha de humor no treino de BJJ
B2 Portuguese listening practice · Brazilian Portuguese · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
Grapplers who take enough knocks to the ear end up with a swollen, lumpy one, and Portuguese calls it orelha de couve-flor, “cauliflower ear,” just like English. Among fighters it is a badge of the sport, worn with some pride. In friendly trash talk it is also material for a joke, because somebody will always say the ear looks like torresmo, crunchy fried pork rind.
In this sparring scene one athlete needles another about his “orelha comidinha,” a chewed-up ear, and says it looks like torresmo, a snack most Brazilians know from bars and barbecues. The comparison works because both are bumpy and crinkled. The retort is worth borrowing too: olha por onde anda means “watch where you’re going,” and desculpa, o caramba is a dismissive “sorry my foot.”
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-PT-BR 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.