Vietnamese for when something isn't just intense but harshly, unfavorably so — built-in criticism of difficulty, severity, or expense.
Gắt is what Vietnamese speakers reach for when something crosses into genuinely harsh territory. It's not just intense — it's intensely unfavorable, carrying built-in criticism. You'd use it for an exam that was brutally difficult, prices that feel exploitative, or a situation that's turned severe in an unwelcome way.
The word emerged from Northern Vietnamese dialect sometime in the 1980s or 90s, then did something unexpected: it traveled south and became even more popular there, particularly among youth in Ho Chi Minh City. That southward journey reveals something about how language moves — not through official channels, but through the conversations young people have online and in person, adopting expressions that capture what they need to say.
What makes gắt useful is its efficiency. Instead of saying "this is very difficult and I'm not happy about it," you say "gắt" and everyone understands both the intensity and your judgment of it. It's complaint and description fused into one syllable. The term's spread across regional boundaries shows how youth culture creates its own linguistic pathways, moving expressions from north to south when they're sharp enough to be worth keeping.