Vietnamese

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Etymology

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From Proto-Vietic *kəŋʔ. Compare Khmer កឹង (kəng) and Pacoh câng. Possibly related to nứng (horny), through an infixed form.

Similarities to Chinese (OC *keŋ-s) (SV: kình, kính), (OC *N-kaŋ, *m-kaŋʔ) (SV: cường, cưỡng), (OC *kˤaŋ) (SV: cương), (OC *kˤi[ŋ]) (SV: kiên) are probably coincidental. The Austroasiatic words might also be borrowed from another source that gave rise to one of the Sinitic words.

Also a semantic loan from English hard in hardware and hard copy.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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cứng (, , , 𠡚, 𦚸)

  1. hard; firm; rigid
    Synonym: rắn, Antonym: mềm (soft)
  2. (of a copy of a document) hard

See also

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Derived terms