công tử bột

Vietnamese

Etymology

công tử (“mandarin's son”) +‎ bột (“flour”), literally “a son of a mandarin [as white and soft as] flour.” bột may also come from French poste (theorizing that công tử bột meant the son of a colonial post office worker who is rich), or from the two names of Hoa Bột, Ba Bột (later thằng Bột) used in hát tuồng to refer to sons of mandarins.[1]

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [kəwŋ͡m˧˧ tɨ˧˩ ʔɓot̚˧˨ʔ]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [kəwŋ͡m˧˧ tɨ˧˨ ʔɓok̚˨˩ʔ]
  • (Saigon) IPA(key): [kəwŋ͡m˧˧ tɨ˨˩˦ ʔɓok̚˨˩˨]

Noun

công tử bột

  1. (derogatory, often figurative) someone who is lazy, doesn't work much, doesn't have much knowledge of the society and can be weak

References

  1. ^ Lê Minh Quốc (28 November 2021) “Sao gọi là "công tử bột"?”, in Báo Người Lao Động‎[1] (in Vietnamese)
  • “"Công tử bột"”, in Báo Đà Nẵng‎[2] (in Vietnamese), 27 August 2017
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