Definition

1. Verb (informal, often humorous):

   • To slip away, to sneak off, to make oneself scarce: To leave a place quietly or secretly, often to avoid an unpleasant situation, duty, or person.
   • To escape, to flee: To get away from a place of confinement or a difficult circumstance.

2. Noun (shortened form):

   • Dragonfly: A shortened, colloquial form of "chuồn chuồn," referring to the insect.

Usage Examples

• Verb:

  • Buổi họp chán quá, nó đã chuồn từ lúc nào rồi. (The meeting was so boring, he slipped away at some point.)
  • Tên tù nhân đã chuồn khỏi nhà giam. (The prisoner escaped from the jail.)
  • Đừng có chuồn khi đến lượt bạn rửa bát. (Don't you sneak off when it's your turn to do the dishes.)

• Noun:

  • Trẻ con thích chạy theo bắt chuồn. (Children like to run after and catch dragonflies.)

Advanced Usage

• "chuồn cửa sau": to leave through the back door; to use underhanded or covert means to escape a situation.

  • Sau vụ bê bối, ông giám đốc đã chuồn cửa sau. (After the scandal, the director slipped out the back door.)

• Used to describe the stealthy movement of goods or people.

  • Bọn buôn lậu chuồn hàng đi lúc nửa đêm. (The smugglers moved the goods away stealthily at midnight.)

Variants and Related Words

• Chuồn chuồn (n): Dragonfly.

  • Chuồn chuồn bay thấp thì mưa. (If dragonflies fly low, it will rain.) [A folk weather proverb]

• Chuồn mất (v phrase): To have slipped away (emphasizing the completed action).

  • Khi cảnh sát đến, bọn lừa đảo đã chuồn mất. (When the police arrived, the scammers had already made themselves scarce.)

Synonyms

• Slip away: To leave quietly and unnoticed.
• Sneak off: To leave secretly.
• Escape: To break free from confinement.
• Flee: To run away from danger.
• Dragonfly: The insect (for the noun form).

Related Idioms and Expressions

• Ba mươi sáu chước, chước chuồn là hơn: (Thirty-six stratagems, the best is to run away.) Equivalent to the English idiom "Discretion is the better part of valour" or "He who fights and runs away, may live to fight another day."

  • Thấy thế bất lợi, hắn nghĩ "ba mươi sáu chước, chước chuồn là hơn". (Seeing the disadvantage, he thought, "of all the stratagems, escape is the best.")

• Phận mỏng cánh chuồn: (A fate as thin as a dragonfly's wing.) A poetic expression describing a fragile, precarious, or vulnerable lot in life.

  • Số phận của cô ấy thật là phận mỏng cánh chuồn. (Her fate is as fragile as a dragonfly's wing.)

noun

1. Như chuồn chuồn
   • phận mỏng cánh chuồn
     a precarious lot

verb

1. To make oneself scarce, to hop it
   • chuồn cửa sau
     to hop it through the back door
2. To move stealthily
   • bọn buôn lậu chuồn hàng đi
     the smugglers stealthily moved off their goods