đom đóm

Vietnamese

Etymology

Expressive reduplication of *đóm (“firefly”). Compare bươm bướm (“butterfly”) < bướm, châu chấu (“grasshopper”) < *chấu. Albeit possibly irrelevant, this type of reduplication is similar to the one that informally expresses uncertainty or lessening (e.g. ớn (“sick of”) > ơn ớn (“kinda sick of”)).

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ɗɔm˧˧ ɗɔm˧˦]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [ɗɔm˧˧ ɗɔm˦˧˥]
(Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ɗɔm˧˧ ɗɔm˦˥]

Noun

(classifier con) đom đóm

a firefly

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.