Definition

1. Intransitive Verb:
   • To drown: To die from submersion in and inhalation of water, resulting in asphyxiation.
   • To be bogged down, to be overwhelmed: Used metaphorically to describe being overwhelmed by difficulties, often in a financial or situational context, as if drowning.

Usage Examples

• Intransitive Verb:
  • Hai đứa trẻ suýt chết đuối ở hồ bơi. (Two children nearly drowned in the swimming pool.)
  • Công ty đó đang chết đuối trong nợ nần. (That company is drowning in debt.)

Advanced Usage

• "chết đuối vớ phải bọt": To clutch at straws; to be so desperate for a solution that one seizes upon any hope, no matter how flimsy or unlikely to help.
  • Trong cơn khủng hoảng, họ chết đuối vớ phải bọt, tin vào mọi lời hứa hão. (In the crisis, they were clutching at straws, believing every empty promise.)

Variants and Related Words

• Chết đuối (n): A drowning death.
  • Cảnh sát đang điều tra vụ chết đuối. (The police are investigating the drowning.)
• Chết đuối trên cạn (idiomatic expression): Literally "to drown on dry land"; to be overwhelmed by problems in a situation where one shouldn't be, often financially.
  • Anh ta chết đuối trên cạn vì những khoản vay lãi cao. (He is drowning on dry land because of high-interest loans.)

Synonyms

• Bị chìm, bị ngạt nước: To sink, to suffocate in water.
• Bị nhấn chìm (nghĩa bóng): To be submerged, to be swamped (figurative).

Related Idioms

• Chết đuối đọi đèn: Literally "to drown in a lamp's bowl of oil"; to be overwhelmed by a very small or trivial matter, to make a mountain out of a molehill.
  • Đừng chết đuối đọi đèn vì chuyện nhỏ như vậy. (Don't drown in a lamp's bowl of oil over such a small matter.)

1. To drown
   • chết đuối vớ phải bọt
     boggeddown man leans on a broken reed