lợ
Definition
- Adjective:
- Blandly sweet; unpleasantly sweet: Describes a taste that is slightly sweet but in an unpleasant, bland, or sickly way, often lacking the refreshing quality of normal sweetness. It is typically used for foods or water that have an undesirable, faint sweetness.
- Brackish: Specifically for water, describes a mixture of fresh and salt water, having a slightly salty and often unpleasant taste.
Usage Examples
- Adjective:
- Nước ở vùng cửa sông có vị lợ. (The water in the river estuary has a brackish taste.)
- Khoai lang này luộc bị lợ, không ngon. (This boiled sweet potato has a blandly sweet taste, it's not good.)
- Cảm giác lợ trong miệng sau khi uống thuốc. (The unpleasantly sweet feeling in the mouth after taking medicine.)
Advanced Usage
"nước lợ": brackish water.
- Rừng ngập mặn thích nghi với môi trường nước lợ. (Mangrove forests adapt to brackish water environments.)
"lờ lợ" (reduplicated form): describes a very mild, slightly unpleasant sweetness.
- Canh bí nấu có vị lờ lợ. (The cooked squash soup has a faintly, unpleasantly sweet taste.)
Variants and Related Words
- Lợ giọng (adj): describes a voice that is unpleasantly sweet or cloying.
- Giọng nói lợ giọng của anh ta khiến tôi khó chịu. (His cloyingly sweet voice annoyed me.)
Synonyms
- Brackish (for water): slightly salty.
- Cloying: excessively sweet to the point of being unpleasant.
- Sickly sweet: sweet in a way that causes discomfort.
Related Idioms
- Ngọt lợ: describes something (often speech or behavior) that is overly and insincerely sweet.
- Anh ta nói năng ngọt lợ để lấy lòng sếp. (He speaks in an overly sweet, ingratiating way to curry favor with the boss.)