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Glite Dictionary
gao lak

gao lak

9.9
A snack of roasted chestnuts sold hot at street markets in Vietnam
  • noun
  • Philippine
translation icon : gao lak
  • Every winter, vendors sell hot gao lak from their street carts.

Examples

  • She bought a bag of gao lak to snack on as she walked through the bustling market.

  • Tourists love sampling gao lak while exploring the night markets.

  • I love to eat gao lak during the winter.

  • Have you tried gao lak from the market?

  • Every winter, vendors sell hot gao lak from their street carts.

  • Tourists love sampling gao lak while exploring the night markets.

  • She bought a bag of gao lak to snack on as she walked through the bustling market.

Surface Forms

gao lak singular
gao laks plural

Morphology

gao + lak

The constituents 'gao' and 'lak' are not English words and are listed with no dictionary meanings, so a B1 learner who knows English vocabulary would not be able to compose their meanings to infer the food sense. Additionally, this is a culture-specific lexicalized food name (like many dish names) whose meaning is arbitrary and not transparently derived from its parts.

Etymology

Gao lak comes from the picture of street vendors roasting chestnuts on small carts, with warm, cracking shells and a smoky smell people remember. One popular story says the name became the word for the snack itself, so gao lak means 'roasted chestnuts' sold at street markets.