bồ hòn

Originally meant Chinese soapberry, a species native to East and Southeast Asia. The meaning was generalised to include the western soapberry from the Americas.

• The first element bồ is found in bồ nâu (“dioscorea cirrhosa, dyeing yam”), bồ quân (“flacourtia jangomas, Indian coffee plum”), bồ hóng (“soot”), bồ nhìn (“scarecrow”), etc. (Vũ Đức Nghiệu, 2019)
• The second element hòn is possibly non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 桓 (“Chinese soapberry”, SV: hoàn).

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɓo˨˩ hɔn˨˩]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɓow˦˩ hɔŋ˦˩]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʔɓow˨˩ hɔŋ˨˩]

(classifier cây, quả, trái) bồ hòn

1. Chinese soapberry (Sapindus mukorossi)

   Thương nhau củ ấu cũng tròn, ghét nhau thì quả bồ hòn cũng vuông.

   If we care for one another, even water caltrops are round; if we hate each other, even the soapberry fruit is square.

2. western soapberry (Sapindus saponaria)

bồ hòn

1. to have no worries

• ngậm bồ hòn làm ngọt

• Đỗ Tất Lợi (2004), “Cây Bồ Hòn (Bòn Hòn)”, in Những cây thuốc và vị thuốc Việt Nam‎^[1] (in Vietnamese), XII edition, pages 751-752: “Tên khoa học Sapindus mukorossi Gaertn.”
• “Bồ hòn”, in Tra cứu dược liệu (in Vietnamese), 2023: “Tên khoa học: Sapindus saponaria L.”
• Liu Jiming, Wang Lianchun, Sun Caowen, et al. (2021), “Global distribution of soapberries (Sapindus L.) habitats under current and future climate scenarios”, in Scientific Reports, volume 11