Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Ăn cướp mà dở thì không bằng ăn trộm

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

If you're going to do something wrong, do it properly

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Nếu làm sai, hãy làm cho đúng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Eat robbery but badly then not as good as eat steal

Examples

Anh ấy ăn cướp mà dở thì không bằng ăn trộm, giờ thì mất hếtHe robbed poorly, now he's lost everything

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Headword listed in the vdict.com proverb dictionary index (discovery source; headword only — no source content copied). Entered as candidate 2026-08-05; definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-08; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Ăn cướp mà dở thì không bằng ăn trộm” mean?

If you're going to do something wrong, do it properly Literally: Eat robbery but badly then not as good as eat steal

Is “Ăn cướp mà dở thì không bằng ăn trộm” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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