Definition

1. Verb:
   • To level or spread evenly: To make a surface flat or smooth by distributing material uniformly, such as spreading gravel on a road.
   • To even out or balance: To transfer a quantity from one container to another to create an equal or balanced amount, such as with rice in baskets or soup in bowls.
   • To revise or edit (archaic, literary): To critically edit, compile, or revise a text, as in the work of Confucius on classical poetry.

Usage Examples

• Verb:
  • Công nhân đang san đá trên mặt đường. (Workers are leveling gravel on the road surface.)
  • Bà san hai thúng gạo cho cân gánh. (She evened out the rice in the two baskets to balance the carrying pole.)
  • Hãy san bớt canh sang bát khác. (Please transfer some soup from this bowl to another.)
  • Khổng Tử san Kinh Thi. (Confucius revised the Book of Poetry.)

Advanced Usage

• "san định" (literary): to collate, edit, and finalize a text.
  • Công việc san định các văn bản cổ rất tỉ mỉ. (The work of collating ancient texts is very meticulous.)

Variants and Related Words

• San bằng (verb): to level, to raze to the ground.

  • Họ san bằng ngọn đồi để thi công. (They leveled the hill for construction.)

• San sẻ (verb): to share, to divide.

  • Chúng tôi cùng san sẻ công việc. (We share the work together.)

Synonyms

• Level: to make a surface flat.
• Even out: to balance quantities.
• Transfer: to move from one place to another.
• Revise (archaic): to edit a text.

Notes on Usage

• The verb "san" is considered somewhat literary or formal in modern Vietnamese, especially in the meaning "to revise." The more common verbs for everyday "leveling" or "transferring" are often "làm phẳng" or "đổ bớt."
• In the meaning "mountain," "san" is a phonetic variant found in some Sino-Vietnamese compound words (e.g., "hải san" - sea mountain/island), but the standard modern word for mountain is "núi" or the Sino-Vietnamese "sơn."

1. (ít dùng) Revise
   • Khổng Tử san Kinh Thi
     Confucius revised the Book of Poetry
2. Level
   • San đá trên mặt đường
     To level the macadam on a road
   • San hai thúng gạo cho cân gánh
     To even the two baskets of rice of a load to balance it
   • San bát canh
     To put the excess soup of a bowl into another.
3. (phonetic variant of sơn in compounds) Mountain