Feelings by Degree

The gloss on desconfiado hides a split that English does not make. « Suspicious » faces two ways at once, and only the sentence around it decides which: a suspicious man may be a man who trusts nobody, or a man nobody trusts, and « the neighbour looked suspicious » can be read either way without straining. Portuguese never runs into that, because it spends two words on it. Desconfiado is always the one doing the suspecting, the person whose guard is up, and that is the sense this list wants. Suspeito is always the one under suspicion: um homem suspeito is a man who looks dodgy, and o suspeito on its own is the suspect in a police report. So olhou desconfiado para a fatura says he distrusted the bill, not that he looked shifty while reading it. The consequence runs the other way as well. Before putting « a suspicious character » into Portuguese, decide whose mind the distrust is sitting in, because neither word will stay vague on your behalf.