cay cú

Thân thiện

Anh ấy thua ván bài và trở nên rất cay cú, quyết đánh cho bằng được đến sáng.

Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Revengeful and bent on recouping one's losses: Describes a state of bitter resentment, especially after a loss or defeat, leading to a stubborn determination to get even or win back what was lost. This is the core meaning, often characterizing a sore loser.
   • Sore / Bitter: Having a feeling of sharp resentment, anger, or humiliation due to failure or unfair treatment.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • Anh ta là một con bạc cay cú. (He is a revengeful gambler / a sore loser gambler.)
  • Càng thua, hắn càng cay cú. (The more he lost, the more revengeful he became.)
  • Đội bóng thua trận với thái độ cay cú. (The football team lost the match with a bitter, sore-loser attitude.)

Advanced Usage

• The term is strongly associated with gambling and competitive contexts but can be applied to any situation involving loss or perceived injustice that provokes a stubborn, resentful reaction.
• It implies a cyclical behavior: the initial loss causes bitterness (), which fuels a compulsive desire to continue (), often leading to further losses.

Variants and Related Words

• Cay (adj): Literally "spicy" or "hot," figuratively meaning bitter, resentful, or stinging (as in a defeat).
• Cú (adj, colloquial): Stubbornly persistent, dogged. When combined with , it intensifies the meaning of stubborn bitterness.

Synonyms

• Revengeful: Eager for revenge.
• Sore loser: A person who becomes angry or bitter after losing.
• Bitter: Feeling anger and resentment.
• Spiteful: Showing malicious ill will.

Related Idioms and Phrases

• Cay cú thua đau: To be bitterly resentful after a painful loss.
  • Sau trận thua đó, anh ấy cay cú thua đau. (After that defeat, he was bitterly resentful of the painful loss.)
• The word itself often functions as a vivid idiomatic descriptor for a specific type of stubborn, embittered mentality.

Học thuật

adj

1. Revengeful and bent on recoup one's losses (like a bad loser)
   • con bạc cay cú
     a bad loser gambler
   • càng thua càng cay cú
     the more he lost, the worse loser he became