bạc phơ
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Completely white; snowy white: Describes hair, typically of an elderly person, that has turned entirely white, often conveying an image of venerable age or the natural aging process.
- Hoary; frosted: Can describe other things that are covered with or have turned a uniform, pale white, like frost or very light-colored fabric.
Usage Examples
- Adjective:
- Ông cụ tóc bạc phơ. (The old man has snowy-white hair.)
- Mái tóc bạc phơ của bà thể hiện một đời lao động vất vả. (Her hoary hair shows a life of hard work.)
- Sương muối phủ trắng bạc phơ cánh đồng. (The frost covered the field in a snowy white.)
Advanced Usage
- "bạc phơ đầu": white-haired.
- Tuổi già, mái tóc bạc phơ đầu. (Old age, with a head of white hair.)
- Used poetically or descriptively to emphasize extreme whiteness or the passage of time.
- Núi cao mùa đông tuyết phủ bạc phơ. (The high mountain in winter is covered in snowy white.)
Variants and Related Words
- Bạc (adj): White (specifically for hair); silver; can also mean ungrateful or mercenary in other contexts.
- Tóc bạc (white/grey hair)
- Phơ (This is a descriptive element often paired with color words to intensify them, e.g., = intensely red, = intensely green). In bạc phơ, it intensifies the whiteness.
Synonyms
- Bạc trắng: white (like silver).
- Trắng xóa: dazzling white (often for larger areas like snow or paint).
- Hoa râm: salt-and-pepper/greying hair (specifically for hair that is partially white, not completely white like bạc phơ).
Idioms and Common Phrases
- Đầu bạc phơ: A head of white hair (a common phrase describing an elderly person).
- Cụ già đầu bạc phơ ngồi đọc sách. (The white-haired old man sat reading a book.)
- While bạc phơ itself is not typically part of a longer idiom, it is a standard, vivid descriptor for white hair in Vietnamese literature and daily speech.
- All white; snowy
- Ông cụ tóc bạc phơA snowy-haired old man