Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Gaping wide open: Describes something, typically an opening or orifice, that is opened extremely wide, often to an excessive or unnatural degree. It emphasizes a state of being stretched or forced open.
   • Bare and desolate: Used reduplicatively as "hoang hoác" to describe a landscape or area that is starkly, bleakly empty and deserted.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • Cánh cửa bị bật mở hoác. (The door was flung gaping wide open.)
  • Đứa trẻ hoác miệng ra khóc. (The child opened its mouth wide [to cry].)
  • Vùng đất hoang hoác, không một bóng người. (The land was bleakly desolate, without a single person in sight.)

Advanced Usage

• The word is very often used in its reduplicated form "hoang hoác" to intensify the sense of emptiness or desolation.
  • Căn nhà bỏ hoang trông hoang hoác. (The abandoned house looked starkly empty.)

Variants and Related Words

• Hoang hoác (adj, reduplicative form): Starkly desolate, bleakly empty. This is the most common form in modern usage.
• Há hoác (adj): A near-synonymous reduplicative form also meaning gaping wide open, often for a mouth.

Synonyms

• Gaping: Wide open.
• Yawning: Describing a wide opening (like a yawn).
• Desolate: Bare, empty, and bleak (for "hoang hoác").

Related Idioms

• Hoác miệng ra: To open one's mouth wide (an idiomatic verbal phrase).
  • Nó chỉ biết hoác miệng ra ngạc nhiên. (He could only gape in surprise.)

1. Open wide
   • Hoác miệng ra mà ngáp
     To open one's mouth wide and yawn
   • Hoang hoác (láy, ý tăng)