giun

Vietnamese

Etymology

From Northern Middle Vietnamese blun, from Proto-Vietic *p-luːn ~ *p-ruːn, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *(b)ruun. Cognate with Khmer ព្រូន (pruun), Mon မြုန် (pərùn). Originally the Northern form, see giai for the sound change.

Trùn, the Central-Southern reflex of the same root, is still widely used in these dialects.

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [zun˧˧]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [jun˧˧]
(Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [jʊwŋ͡m˧˧]
Homophones: dung, Dung, vun, vung

Noun

(classifier con) giun • (𧉙, 𧑒)

a worm (animal)
tẩy/xổ giun ― to deworm
ngủ với giun ― to die (literally, “to sleep with worms”)
- 2011, Trịnh Huy Ninh, transl., Viking hung bạo, translation of Horrible Histories: The Vicious Vikings by Terry Deary and Martin Brown, page 49:
  Nhát gan chỉ núp mà run
  Rồi thì cũng ngủ với giun thôi mà
  Go ahead and hide during every battle
  You will drop dead eventually

Derived terms

con giun xéo lắm cũng quằn
dầu giun (Jesuit's tea herb)
dẽ giun (sandpiper bird)
giun chỉ (a kind of filarial roundworm)
giun dẹp (flatworm)
giun đất (earthworm)
giun đốt (annelid; segmented worm)
giun đũa (giant roundworm)
giun kim (pinworm)
giun lươn (threadworm)
giun móc (hookworm)
giun móc câu
giun sán (parasitic worms)
giun tóc (human whipworm)
giun tròn (roundworm)
rắn giun