ăn xưa chừa nay
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Learn from past mistakes to improve the present
Literally: eat old abandon now
Examples
Anh ấy ăn xưa chừa nay nên không bao giờ mắc lỗi giống trướcHe learns from his past mistakes, so he never makes the same error again
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Discovered via Tục ngữ, cổ ngữ, gia ngôn (Huỳnh Tịnh Của, 1897; public domain, via vi.wikisource); retrieved 2026-08-01. Source: source ↗ Attested in Tục ngữ, cổ ngữ, gia ngôn (Huỳnh Tịnh Của, 1897). Source gloss (Vietnamese): “Ai nấy có một thuở.” Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-01; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “ăn xưa chừa nay” mean?
Learn from past mistakes to improve the present Literally: eat old abandon now
Is “ăn xưa chừa nay” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.