Definition

1. Noun:
   • Duckweed: A very small, free-floating aquatic plant, typically found on the surface of still or slow-moving freshwater bodies like ponds, lakes, and ditches. It is one of the smallest flowering plants in the world.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • Mặt hồ phủ đầy bèo tấm. (The surface of the pond is covered with duckweed.)
  • Bèo tấm là thức ăn cho một số loài cá. (Duckweed is food for some types of fish.)

Advanced Usage

• "bèo tấm trôi": to drift like duckweed; a metaphor for a precarious, rootless, or unstable life.
  • Cuộc đời anh ấy như cánh bèo tấm trôi. (His life is like a piece of drifting duckweed.)

Variants and Related Words

• Bèo cái (n): Water hyacinth; a larger, more invasive floating aquatic plant.
• Bèo hoa dâu (n): Azolla; a small floating fern, often used as fertilizer in rice paddies.
• Bèo Nhật Bản (n): Giant duckweed (); a larger species of duckweed.

Synonyms

• Lục bình (n): Water hyacinth. (Note: This is a different, larger plant, but both are common floating aquatic plants.)
• Lentille d'eau (n): The French term for duckweed, used in some scientific or historical contexts in Vietnam.

Related Phrases

• "Đời cánh bèo": A life like a duckweed frond; an idiom describing a life of poverty, instability, and lack of control over one's destiny.
  • Số phận cô ấy thật đáng thương, một đời cánh bèo. (Her fate is so pitiful, a life adrift like duckweed.)

Related Idioms

• "Bèo dạt mây trôi": Literally "duckweed drifts, clouds float"; an idiom depicting a life of wandering, uncertainty, and being at the mercy of circumstances, often with a poetic or melancholic tone.
  • Sau chiến tranh, nhiều người phải sống cảnh bèo dạt mây trôi. (After the war, many people had to live a life of drifting like duckweed and clouds.)

1. Duckweed