Definition

1. Verb:
   • To pay for; to cost: To require the expenditure or consumption of a certain amount of money, time, effort, or resources. It often implies a necessary or incurred expense.
   • To waste; to use up unnecessarily: To expend or consume something in a manner considered excessive, inefficient, or wasteful.

Usage Examples

• Verb:
  • Việc sửa xe này tốn rất nhiều tiền. (Fixing this car costs a lot of money.)
  • Công việc đó tốn của tôi cả buổi chiều. (That task took me the whole afternoon.)
  • Đừng tốn thời gian vào những chuyện vô ích. (Don't waste time on useless matters.)

Advanced Usage

• "tốn công": to expend effort/toil; often used to express that effort was spent, sometimes wastefully.
  • Anh ấy đã tốn công rất nhiều để hoàn thành dự án. (He expended a great deal of effort to complete the project.)
• "tốn kém": costly, expensive (often used as an adjective).
  • Đây là một phương án rất tốn kém. (This is a very costly option.)
• "hao tốn": to deplete, to use up (resources, energy). This is a more formal or literary synonym.
  • Chiến tranh đã hao tốn nhiều tài nguyên của đất nước. (The war depleted many of the country's resources.)

Variants and Related Words

• Tiêu tốn (verb): to consume, to spend (money, resources). Often interchangeable with "tốn" but can emphasize the process of spending.
  • Dự án tiêu tốn hàng triệu đô la. (The project consumed millions of dollars.)
• Tốn kém (adjective): costly, expensive.
  • Một sai lầm tốn kém. (A costly mistake.)
• Phí tổn (noun): cost, expense.
  • Tính toán mọi phí tổn trước khi bắt đầu. (Calculate all costs before starting.)

Synonyms

• Chi (verb): to spend (money). More neutral than "tốn".
• Tiêu (verb): to spend, to use up. Can be neutral or slightly negative.
• Mất (verb): to lose. Used for time or opportunities ("mất thời gian").
• Tiêu hao (verb): to consume, to deplete (often for energy, supplies).

Related Phrases (Collocations)

• Tốn tiền: to cost money / to waste money.
  • Thú vui đó rất tốn tiền. (That hobby is very costly.)
• Tốn thời gian: to take time / to waste time.
  • Làm thủ tục ở đây tốn thời gian lắm. (Doing paperwork here takes a lot of time.)
• Tốn công sức: to require effort / to expend labor.
  • Việc này tốn công sức nhưng rất đáng giá. (This work requires effort but is very worthwhile.)
• Tốn của: to use up resources/possessions (a colloquial expression).
  • Chạy xe máy tốn xăng lắm, tốn của lắm. (Riding a motorbike uses a lot of gas, it's very costly.)

Related Idioms

• Tốn công vô ích / Tốn công tốn sức: To labor in vain; to expend effort for no good result.
  • Cuối cùng anh ấy chẳng được gì, thật là tốn công vô ích. (In the end, he got nothing, it was truly a waste of effort.)
• Tiền mất tật mang: (Literally: Money lost, illness remains). An idiom meaning to suffer a double loss—losing money and gaining nothing but trouble. It relates to the concept of a wasteful expense ("tốn tiền") that brings negative consequences.
  • Mua thuốc giả không khỏi bệnh, đúng là tiền mất tật mang. (Buying fake medicine didn't cure the illness, it's a complete waste of money and health.)

verb

1. to pay for