The story
Abafar is to smother, so desabafar is taking the lid off: you tell a friend the whole thing and breathe again. Portuguese treats it as a favour you can ask for outright. English has to borrow a chest and get the thing off it.
desabafar
duh-zah-bah-FAR[dɨ.zɐ.bɐˈfaɾ]
to get the whole thing off your chest and breathe again
Closest in English: vent, venting, unburden. None of them covers it.
How it went in the game
Contains the answers. If you want to play the word yourself first, leave this closed.
- Which language is it from?Portuguese (Lisbon)
- What does it literally say?To un-stifle
- Where would you hear it?At the kitchen table long past midnight
- What does it mean?To say out loud what has been sitting on you
How it went
Round one, language, was where most points went.