Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Ăn rá cơm, ỉa rá cơm

🎙 Say it

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To work hard but receive little reward

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Làm việc chăm chỉ nhưng nhận ít phần thưởng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Eat dry rice, defecate dry rice

Examples

Người lao động vất vả nhưng chỉ nhận được mức lương thấp, ăn rá cơm, ỉa rá cơm.The worker toiled but only received a low wage, eating dry rice and defecating dry rice.

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 rá cơm, ỉa rá cơm” mean?

To work hard but receive little reward Literally: Eat dry rice, defecate dry rice

Is “Ăn rá cơm, ỉa rá cơm” formal or informal?

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

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time