tò-he

Trẻ em thích chơi với những con tò-he đầy màu sắc.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • Traditional toy figurine: A small, colorful figurine, typically molded by hand from glutinous rice dough, depicting animals, flowers, or characters. It is a traditional Vietnamese folk toy, often sold to children at festivals, temple grounds, or by street vendors.
   • The craft or art form: Refers to the traditional craft of making these edible, decorative figurines.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • Ông cụ làm nghề nặn tò-he. (The old man makes a living crafting tò-he figurines.)
  • Các em nhỏ rất thích những con tò-he đầy màu sắc. (The children love the colorful tò-he figurines.)
  • Tò-he là một nét văn hóa dân gian độc đáo của Việt Nam. (Tò-he is a unique folk culture feature of Vietnam.)

Advanced Usage

• The term is used almost exclusively to refer to this specific cultural artifact. It is a compound word treated as a single lexical unit.

Variants and Related Words

• Nghệ thuật nặn tò-he: The art of sculpting .
  • Nghệ thuật nặn tò-he đang dần được gìn giữ. (The art of sculpting tò-he is gradually being preserved.)

Synonyms

• Rice dough figurine: A descriptive synonym highlighting the material.
• Folk toy: A general category it belongs to.

Related Idioms

• There are no common idioms directly using the word "tò-he." It is primarily a concrete noun referring to the object itself.