Pagar Mico means to be embarrassed. Specifically, pagar mico refers to whatever you did to embarrass yourself.
An example would be: “Ele escorregou no tapete na casa da minha avó. Pagou mico!” He slipped on the rug at my grandmother’s house. Pagou mico.
Other circumstances of pagando mico would be spilling a beer on your girlfriend, public incontinence, calling someone by the wrong name, and so forth. If someone does something really really embarrassing it is called a king-kong.
Mico is actually a type of small monkey. Perhaps this phrase comes from comparing someone’s embarrassing action with the foolishness of macacos or monkeys.
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There are a couple of expressions that we can use in embarrassing situations (very informal slang):
“Escorregar na maionese” or “sentar na maionese”
ex: Ele escorregou na maionese!
(He did something stupid)
“Fiasco”
ex: Que fiasco!
(what a shame!)
(what a embarrasing situation)
“Fiasquento” = Person who do a lot of “Fiascos”
“Pagar mico” also is used to describe a situation when a person is supposed to do something s/he is not skilled at and therefore will probably cut an ugly figure doing it.Mostly,people will do it solely because it is required of them, as for example,make an improvised speech, sing a song or some times it comes as a punishment for someone who has broken a rule in the classroom.
Alternative expressions for “pagar mico”: “pagar vexa” (”vexa” comes from “vexame”, executing an ashaming action), “pisar na bola”, “pisar no tomate”, “fazer uma cagada” (better be among friends when saying that… and better be laughing of someone’s mess, not yourself…). Well I don’t know how to say “pisar” (step over, maybe), so I’ll not translate the expressions to english.
I’m a native speaker . I live in São Paulo , and I’ve never heard “pagar vexa” . where are you from paullus .
Isn’t there a more informal expression or any slang in English which might mean “pagar mico” in Portuguese? Does anyone know what it is?
HI, I live in Brazil and I must say that some of the slangs you posted here are no longer used by brazilians. Ex.: “escorregar na maionese”, if you say something like this people will laught. Everybody will understand, but will be funny.
If you wanna ask something about portuguese that you’re not realy shure, I volunteer myself for answering, OK?
Good luck there
Carla,
“escorregar na maionese” really isn’t in use but there is a expression: “Viajar na maionese”, right?
hey guys,
how about blooper and blunder as words for “mico”?
i gather that are lots of words that express the ideia of an embarrassing mistake but these 2 seem more like slangs to me - specially plooper. what ho you think?
nowadays the cariocas say “rachar a cara” when you do foolisshnes. ah and paullus step over is the correct translation to “pisar” so the sentence would be- “to step over the tomato”
“viajar na maionese” is more used when someone says something with no logic or has nothing to it
Há também a expressão “queimar a cara”, “queimar o filme”, similar a “pagar mico”
the word FIASCO is used in brazil portuguese.
the word FIASCO is used in USA as well
both means “something that went down…collapsed”
like “the police, in pursuit of a thug, crashed the police car into a barber-shop; what a FIASCO”
The original meaning of this expression stems from a game of cards called “mico”. Each card has an animal in it and everyone discards or passes one card around (I don’t remember it exactly). Whoever is left with the monkey at the end of the game is the loser and has to “pay” a penalty. A very common penalty is getting black spots stamped on the face with a slightly burned bottle cork.
Sorry, in portuguese:
Em São Paulo se diz “quebrar a cara” quando algo DÁ errado - Jonas apostou tudo e quebrou a cara (perdeu). Dirceu tentou levar vantagem e quebrou a cara (não conseguiu). Não confundir com “brigar” (fight) - Vou te quebrar a cara! (vou bater em você).
“Pisar na bola” ou “pisar no tomate” é FAZER errado, dar “mancada” - Jonas disse que ia me pagar hoje e não pagou; ele pisou na bola comigo. Dirceu pisou no tomate, falou mau da Ana.
Já “pagar mico” é passar por uma situação embaraçosa, muitas vezes engraçada (para os outros) - Jonas tem uma voz horrível, pagou o maior mico no karaokê.
‘Pagar mico’ means ‘to make a faux pas’ in English. It happens whenever you are involved in embarassing situations such as that that follows, “You’ve been invited to a friend’s party, but you haven’t been introduced to his kins yet, you may happen to look at an old lady and say to your friend, ‘Can you see that woman over there? She’s ugly, isn’t she?’, and surprisingly your friend answers ‘She’s my mom!’, and then you try to fix everything up by continuing, ‘not that woman, that one sitting on the sofa’, and angrily your friend replies, ‘That’s my sister.’
That’s right, Carol! To make a faux pas is the suitable expression. Excellent post.
Thank you