Most Brazilian Portuguese past participles are perfectly regular: drop the infinitive ending and add -ado (for -ar verbs) or -ido (for -er and -ir verbs). But a small group of very high-frequency verbs has irregular participles you simply have to memorize — and because these verbs are so common, you meet their participles constantly in the perfect tenses (tenho feito), the passive (foi escrito), and as adjectives (a porta está aberta). This page is your quick-reference cheat sheet.
Why these are irregular
These participles are irregular for the same reason English has written instead of "writed" and seen instead of "seed": they are the oldest, most-used verbs in the language, and high-frequency forms resist regularization. Latin had short, irregular participles (Latin scriptum → escrito), and Portuguese inherited them intact. There is no productive rule — you memorize the list. The good news is that it is a short list, and many forms are predictable in clusters (verbs in -brir give -berto; the escrever/-screver family gives -scrito).
The master reference table
| Infinitive | Meaning | Participle |
|---|---|---|
| ver | to see | visto |
| fazer | to do / make | feito |
| dizer | to say | dito |
| escrever | to write | escrito |
| abrir | to open | aberto |
| cobrir | to cover | coberto |
| descobrir | to discover / uncover | descoberto |
| pôr | to put | posto |
| vir | to come | vindo |
| ganhar | to win / earn | ganho |
| gastar | to spend | gasto |
| pagar | to pay | pago |
| pegar | to grab / catch | pego |
| aceitar | to accept | aceito |
| entregar | to deliver / hand in | entregue |
| imprimir | to print | impresso |
| matar | to kill | morto |
| morrer | to die | morto |
| prender | to arrest / fasten | preso |
The clusters worth seeing
The -berto family (verbs in -brir)
Any verb built on -brir drops to -berto. Learn one and you get the whole family.
A loja já está aberta desde as oito da manhã.
The shop has been open since eight in the morning.
O bolo veio todo coberto de chocolate.
The cake came all covered in chocolate.
Ainda não foi descoberta a causa do problema.
The cause of the problem hasn't been discovered yet.
The -ito / -isto family
ver → visto, dizer → dito, escrever → escrito, fazer → feito, imprimir → impresso. These short, sharp forms are the most frequent participles in the language.
Eu nunca tinha visto nada parecido na vida.
I had never seen anything like it in my life.
O que está dito está dito — não volto atrás.
What's said is said — I won't take it back.
O contrato foi escrito por um advogado.
The contract was written by a lawyer.
The famous overlap: morto
Here is the single most striking fact on this page. The form morto is the past participle of both matar (to kill) and morrer (to die). Context — and especially the auxiliary or preposition around it — tells you which.
- From matar: morto = "killed," with an external agent doing the killing.
- From morrer: morto = "dead / having died," describing the state of the one who died.
Ele foi morto num assalto.
He was killed in a robbery. (morto = participle of matar, with an agent)
O cachorro foi encontrado morto na manhã seguinte.
The dog was found dead the next morning. (morto = state, from morrer)
Participles that are also "double" verbs
Several verbs in the table — ganhar, gastar, pagar, pegar, entregar, aceitar — historically had a regular participle too (ganhado, gastado, pagado, pegado, entregado, aceitado). In modern Brazilian Portuguese the short irregular forms (ganho, gasto, pago, pego, entregue, aceito) have almost entirely won out and are used in every register, including after ter. The longer regular forms now sound archaic or wrong to most Brazilian ears.
The traditional grammar rule — taught in schools but increasingly ignored in practice — says the short (irregular) form goes with ser/estar (the passive and resultative voices) and the long (regular) form goes with ter/haver (the perfect). So a strict grammarian writes tenho ganhado but foi ganho. In real BR, however, the short forms dominate both slots, and a sentence like tenho pago sounds entirely normal. Where the distinction genuinely survives in careful writing is with verbs like imprimir (tenho imprimido / foi impresso) and prender (tenho prendido / foi preso).
O documento já foi impresso e está em cima da mesa.
The document has already been printed and is on the table.
O suspeito foi preso na fronteira na semana passada.
The suspect was arrested at the border last week.
Já paguei a conta de luz deste mês.
I've already paid this month's electricity bill.
Os documentos foram entregues no prazo.
The documents were delivered on time.
Common Mistakes
❌ Você tem abrido a janela de manhã?
Incorrect — abrir uses the irregular participle aberto, never 'abrido.'
✅ Você tem aberto a janela de manhã?
Have you been opening the window in the mornings?
❌ Eu tenho fazido todo o trabalho.
Incorrect — fazer uses feito, never 'fazido.'
✅ Eu tenho feito todo o trabalho.
I've been doing all the work.
❌ A carta foi escrevida ontem.
Incorrect — escrever uses escrito, never 'escrevida.'
✅ A carta foi escrita ontem.
The letter was written yesterday.
❌ Já tenho pagado tudo.
Marginal/archaic — modern BR strongly prefers the short form pago.
✅ Já tenho pago tudo.
I've already paid for everything.
❌ O ladrão foi morrido pela polícia.
Incorrect — when there is a killer/agent, use morto (from matar).
✅ O ladrão foi morto pela polícia.
The thief was killed by the police.
Key Takeaways
- A short list of high-frequency verbs has irregular participles; memorize them as whole words.
- -brir verbs give -berto (aberto, coberto, descoberto); the ver/dizer/escrever/fazer family gives -isto/-ito/-eito.
- morto is the participle of both matar and morrer — the agent disambiguates.
- For ganhar, gastar, pagar, pegar, entregar, aceitar, modern BR uses the short irregular participle everywhere, even after ter.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Irregular Past ParticiplesA2 — The high-frequency Brazilian Portuguese verbs whose past participles don't follow the -ado/-ido pattern — visto, feito, dito, escrito, posto, aberto, vindo, ganho — plus the verbs that have both a regular and irregular form.
- Double Past Participles (chego/chegado, ganho/ganhado)B1 — The Brazilian Portuguese verbs that keep two past participles — a regular one for ter and an irregular one for ser/estar — and how that prescriptive split is breaking down in modern speech.
- Double Past Participle ListB1 — A reference list of Brazilian Portuguese verbs that have two past participles, with the prescriptive ter/ser rule and notes on modern usage.
- The Past Participle in BR PortugueseA2 — What the past participle (particípio passado) is, how it's formed, and its three jobs — compound tenses, passive voice, and adjective — including the crucial rule that it agrees in passive and adjectival use but not after ter.
- Forming the Pretérito Perfeito CompostoA2 — How to build the Brazilian present perfect: present-tense 'ter' plus an invariant past participle that never agrees with the subject.