开
kāi
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 開
To open, and to switch on a machine or a light. 开门 is 'to open the door' and 开灯 (kāi dēng) 'to switch on the light'; for a vehicle it means to drive (开车), and 开会 is 'to hold a meeting'. Its opposite, 'to close, switch off', is 关 (guān).
Mở; cũng có nghĩa là bật máy móc hay đèn. 开门 là “mở cửa”, 开灯 (kāi dēng) là “bật đèn”; với xe cộ thì là lái (开车), còn 开会 là “họp”. Ngược lại, “đóng, tắt” là 关 (guān).
VerbRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “开” mean?
To open, and to switch on a machine or a light. 开门 is 'to open the door' and 开灯 (kāi dēng) 'to switch on the light'; for a vehicle it means to drive (开车), and 开会 is 'to hold a meeting'. Its opposite, 'to close, switch off', is 关 (guān).
Is “开” formal or informal?
开 is generally neutral.