loay hoay

Vietnamese

Etymology

From l- reduplication of hoay (obsolete), likely related to obsolete hoáy, whence loáy hoáy and hí hoáy.[1][2]

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [lwaj˧˧ hwaj˧˧]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [lwaj˧˧ hwaj˧˧]
  • (Saigon) IPA(key): [l⁽ʷ⁾aj˧˧ waj˧˧]

Verb

loay hoay • (雷揮) (reduplication loay ha loay hoay, loay hoa loay hoay, loay hoay loa hoa)

  1. to struggle to deal; to try everything; to fumble; to mess around
    loay hoay mãi vẫn không mở được cửa ― to try forvever but still cannot open the door
    loay hoay với cái xe hỏng ― to try everything to fix the broken car

References

  1. ^ Rev. An-tôn Trần Gia Kiệm (2004) “Loay”, in Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán-Việt, page 546
  2. ^ Rev. An-tôn Trần Gia Kiệm (2004) “Hoay”, in Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán-Việt, page 461
  • “loay hoay”, in Soha Tra Từ (in Vietnamese), Hanoi: Vietnam Communications Corporation. Available under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
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