No. 76 in Portuguese
polícia
"Polícia" in Portuguese means "police" in English, referring to the organization or officers responsible for law enforcement.
In a sentence
A polícia chegou rapidamente ao local do acidente.
The police arrived quickly at the scene of the accident.
In this sentence, 'polícia' refers to the organized body of officers enforcing the law, used as a collective noun.
Ele ligou para a polícia ao perceber algo suspeito.
He called the police upon noticing something suspicious.
Here, 'polícia' is used to indicate the service or organization that the person contacted for help.
Minha amiga é polícia há cinco anos.
My friend has been a police officer for five years.
In this instance, 'polícia' is employed to denote an individual member of the police force as a profession.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “polícia” in actual Portuguese podcasts.
Find “polícia” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Portuguese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into português, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Portuguese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).