Definition

1. 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.

1. All white; snowy
   • Ông cụ tóc bạc phơ
     A snowy-haired old man