tàn quân
Definition
- Noun:
- Remnant troops / Remaining forces: Refers to the surviving soldiers of a military unit after a major defeat, battle, or prolonged conflict. These are the scattered, often disorganized, remains of a larger army.
- Stragglers: Can also describe small, fragmented groups of soldiers who have become separated from their main force.
Usage Examples
- Noun:
- Sau trận đánh, tàn quân địch rút chạy vào rừng. (After the battle, the enemy remnant troops retreated into the forest.)
- Nhóm tàn quân ấy vẫn cố gắng kháng cự. (That group of stragglers still tried to resist.)
Advanced Usage
- The term often carries a connotation of being weakened, defeated, and no longer a coherent fighting force. It is frequently used in historical or literary contexts to describe the aftermath of a conflict.
- can be used metaphorically in non-military contexts to describe the last remaining members of a group or organization that is nearly dissolved.
Variants and Related Words
- Tàn binh (n): A direct synonym meaning "remnant soldiers" or "remaining troops."
- Tàn binh của đạo quân ấy đã đầu hàng. (The remaining troops of that army have surrendered.)
Synonyms
- Remnants: What remains of something, especially after destruction.
- Stragglers: Soldiers or others who have fallen behind the main group.
- Survivors: Those who remain alive after an event where others have died.
Related Idioms
- While itself is not typically part of a fixed idiom, it is conceptually related to phrases describing defeat and dissolution, such as "tan tác như chim vỡ tổ" (scattered like birds from a broken nest), which can describe the state of a defeated army.