I know sacanagem is a tricky word. But I'm going to try and help you all understand and use it.
The word sacanagem derives from the word sacana, and according to Aurélio Dictionary it means:
Sacana: adj. e s.m. e s.f. Bras. Chul. Diz-se de, ou pessoa sem caráter, libertina. / Bras. (N) Diz-se de, ou pederasta passivo.
So sacana is a person with bad character or moral, or a libertine, or a sodomite. By reading this you'll automatically assume that this is a bad word. Well, not quite. Actually, this is a somewhat old fashioned and lately the word has a new general understanding. Maybe my great-grandma would use the word like this. Or if I'm mad at someone and I don't want to call them a bad name, I might call them sacana, if this person has done something against me. But in general, we don't call anyone sacana just because it's not part of our vocabulary.
Though sacanagem, we say a lot. The general understanding is that sacanagem is something someone does to effect you in a bad way, like pull your leg or pull the rug from under your feet. Sometimes, when something bad happens and it's not anyone fault we say it's a sacanagem, like when your team looses the final, or your car won't start, it's just those bad things that happen. We also can say a filme de sacanagem (a blue movie) or you can do sacanagem with your partner, like just mess around with your boyfriend or girlfriend and not as bad thing, just "natural stuff". And last but not least, maybe something wasn't working or wasn't possible and someone did something you don't understand and then it worked or was possible - they pulled some strings. So we say he did a sacanagem and now it's working.
And remember, derived from this word we have the verb sacanear - which is the action of pulling someone's rug from under their feet, sacanagenzinha (and it's not a little sacanagem, but a sacanagem with less importance), and many others.
Let's see some examples:
- Que sacanagem! Sua mãe te colocar de castigo no dia da festa ( Too bad your mom grounded you the day of the party.)
- O carro não queria pegar, ele fez uma sacanagenzinha, e na hora ligou. (The car wouldn't start, the he did something - i don't know what, and it worked right away.)
- Ele é um sacana. Ficou com a minha gata. (He's a jerk. He cheated me with my girl. - But only if I'm extremely polite.)
- Ele me sacaneou e ficou com o meu emprego. (He pulled the rug from under my feet and got my job.)
- Trabalhar no fim de semana é sacanagem. ( Working on weekends sucks.)
