Definition

1. Adjective phrase:
   • To be completely submerged, to be up to one's head/ears: Describes a state where something is so deep or overwhelming that it reaches the level of one's head, often used metaphorically to indicate being extremely busy or deeply immersed in something.
   • To be swamped, to be overwhelmed: Used figuratively to describe being buried or inundated with work, tasks, or problems.

Usage Examples

• Literal meaning (less common):
  • Nước lũ dâng cao, lút đầu cây cối. (The floodwater rose high, submerging the trees up to their tops.)
• Figurative meaning (very common):
  • Dịp cuối năm, anh ấy lút đầu trong đống giấy tờ. (At the end of the year, he is up to his ears in paperwork.)
  • Cô ấy lút đầu với công việc chăm sóc con nhỏ. (She is completely swamped with the work of caring for her young child.)

Advanced Usage

• "lút đầu lút cổ": An intensified idiom meaning to be completely and utterly overwhelmed or submerged.
  • Dự án mới khiến cả team lút đầu lút cổ. (The new project has the whole team completely swamped.)
• Used to emphasize an extreme state of being busy or involved, often with a slight connotation of struggle.

Variants and Related Words

• Ngập đầu: A more standard synonym with the same meaning (to be submerged up to the head; to be overwhelmed).
  • Công việc ngập đầu. (Work is overwhelming.)
• Chìm ngập: To be flooded or drowned (in something).
  • chìm ngập trong nợ nần (to be drowning in debt)

Synonyms

• Bận ngập đầu: Extremely busy.
• Bận tối mắt tối mũi: To be busy to the point of being unable to see clearly (idiom for being extremely busy).
• Quá tải: Overloaded.

Related Phrases

• Lút mắt: (dialectal) To be submerged up to the eyes; to be very busy. (Less common than "lút đầu").
• Lút cổ: (dialectal) To be submerged up to the neck.

Related Idioms

• Đầu tắt mặt tối: An idiom describing a state of being so busy from early morning until late at night that one's face is "darkened."
  • Mùa vụ, các bác nông dân làm việc đầu tắt mặt tối. (During the harvest season, farmers work from dawn till dusk.)
• Bận như con thoi: As busy as a shuttle (weaving quickly back and forth).

1. (tiếng địa phương) Be up to the ears
   • Công việc lút đầu suốt ngày
     To be up to the ears in work the whole day