Definition

1. Verb:
   • To grope one's way: To move carefully and slowly, especially in the dark or in an unfamiliar place, by feeling with one's hands or feet to find the way or avoid obstacles.
   • To fumble one's way: To proceed in an awkward, hesitant, or uncertain manner, often due to a lack of light or clear direction.

Usage Examples

• Verb:
  • Trời tối đen như mực, anh ấy phải rà rẫm dọc theo bức tường để tìm cửa ra. (It was pitch dark, he had to grope his way along the wall to find the exit.)
  • Không có đèn pin, chúng tôi rà rẫm trong rừng suốt một giờ đồng hồ. (Without a flashlight, we fumbled our way through the forest for a full hour.)
  • Đêm hôm rà rẫm đến đó làm gì? (Why are you groping your way there in the middle of the night?)

Advanced Usage

• "rà rẫm tìm đường": to grope/fumble one's way to find the path.
  • Sau khi xe hỏng, họ phải rà rẫm tìm đường về nhà trong bóng tối. (After the car broke down, they had to grope their way home in the dark.)
• The word often implies a sense of difficulty, inconvenience, or even foolishness for attempting to move or do something under challenging conditions (like darkness).

Variants and Related Words

• Rà (verb): To probe, to scan, to feel along a surface. Often used in technical contexts (e.g., rà soát - to review, to scan) or literally (e.g., rà tay trên bàn - to run one's hand over the table). "Rà rẫm" is an intensive/reduplicative form of "rà," emphasizing the slow, careful, and uncertain action.
• Mò mẫm (verb): A close synonym meaning to grope, to fumble around. It can be used interchangeably with "rà rẫm" in many contexts.

Synonyms

• Grope: To feel about or search blindly or uncertainly with the hands.
• Fumble: To use the hands awkwardly in doing something or in searching for something.
• Feel one's way: To proceed cautiously, especially by using one's sense of touch.

Related Idioms/Phrases

• While "rà rẫm" itself is not typically part of a larger idiomatic structure, it describes the action within common scenarios. The phrase (Groping around at night...) is a classic example used to question the wisdom or necessity of an action done under difficult, obscure, or suspicious circumstances.

1. Grope one's way