Portuguese to English lé

[Matt T]

lé is labelled as a Portuguese, described as: "part of the Portuguese idiom lé com lé"

No such idiom exists right?

 

[casaleiro]

It exists!
Lé com lé, cré com cré: "birds of a feather flock together", "like with like", etc.
Have a look here: A Dictionary of English and Romance Languages Equivalent Proverbs

However, the meaning of the word lé, if it can be said to have a meaning, is a total mystery to me.

 

[casaleiro]

Further to the question of meaning: I see now that cré is synonymous with giz 'chalk'. Now, in French the word for this substance is craie. So maybe the proverb is simply some kind of Franco-Portuguese calque (no pun intended):

craie avec craie, lait avec lait > cré com cré, lé com lé
'chalk with chalk, milk with milk'.

There's always been plenty of vernacular coming-and-going between Spain, Portugal and France, especially the South of France.
Only a hypothesis, but it has this advantage that the proverb makes perfect sense if I'm right

 

[MeggieBR]

Further to the question of meaning: I see now that cré is synonymous with giz 'chalk'. Now, in French the word for this substance is craie. So maybe the proverb is simply some kind of Franco-Portuguese calque (no pun intended):

craie avec craie, lait avec lait > cré com cré, lé com lé
'chalk with chalk, milk with milk'.

There's always been plenty of vernacular coming-and-going between Spain, Portugal and France, especially the South of France.
Only a hypothesis, but it has this advantage that the proverb makes perfect sense if I'm right

Yes, this idiom exists, but it´s not very popular. It means 'cada um na sua; cada qual com cada qual' (veja aqui). The word 'lé' alone doesn´t have any meaning.