xiên khoai
Definition
Noun:
- A bamboo or wooden skewer used for roasting or holding sweet potatoes (or other foods): A pointed stick, traditionally made of bamboo, on which pieces of food, especially sweet potato, are impaled for cooking over an open fire or charcoal.
- (Figurative, colloquial) A sharp, piercing object or a state of being skewered: Used metaphorically to describe something that is sharply penetrating or the act of being impaled.
Adjective (in the compound "nắng xiên khoai"):
- Scorching, piercing, or blazing (sunlight): Describes the intense, direct, and penetrating rays of the afternoon sun, akin to the sharpness of a skewer.
Usage Examples
Noun:
- Bà nội vót những chiếc xiên khoai để nướng cho các cháu. (Grandmother whittled sweet potato skewers to roast for the grandchildren.)
- Cảm giác như bị một cái xiên khoai đâm vào lưng. (It felt like being stabbed in the back by a sweet potato skewer.)
Adjective (in "nắng xiên khoai"):
- Trưa hè, nắng xiên khoai chiếu thẳng xuống mặt đường. (At summer noon, the scorching sun shone straight down onto the road surface.)
Advanced Usage
- The term is most commonly encountered in the fixed phrase "nắng xiên khoai", which vividly personifies the sun's rays as sharp, piercing skewers. This is a poetic and descriptive idiom used in literature and everyday speech to emphasize extreme heat and discomfort.
Variants and Related Words
- Xiên (n/v): A skewer; to skewer or pierce.
- Xiên thịt nướng. (Skewer meat for grilling.)
- Que xiên (n): Another term for a skewer stick.
Synonyms
- Skewer: A thin pointed rod for holding food.
- Blazing sun: For "nắng xiên khoai".
- Piercing (heat): For the adjective form describing sunlight.
Related Idioms
- Nắng xiên khoai: A set idiom meaning "scorching/piercing sunlight".
- Phải đội nón ra đường kẻo nắng xiên khoai đấy. (You must wear a hat when going out, or the piercing sun will get you.)