What does “te pegar” mean in Portuguese?

Pegar is one of Brazilian Portuguese’s busiest verbs: you pega the bus, pega a cold, pega your keys. But shift it into a chase and it turns playful — te pegar means “to catch you,” the mock-threat of a child running you down. So “hoje eu tô querendo te pegar” isn’t menacing; it’s the singsong “I’m gonna get you!” of a game of tag.

The game itself is pega-pega (literally “catch-catch”), Brazil’s version of tag: one pegador chases the others and “catches” them with a touch. That’s the register behind the mother’s line “hoje eu tô querendo te pegar” as the scene tips from a tense pass into a chase. Pegar descends from Latin picāre, “to smear with pitch” (from pix, “pitch”) — the idea of something sticking, grabbing hold, which still echoes in pegar meaning “to stick/glue.” Watch the spelling: the past tense is peguei (the g gains a u before e).